The Passover. Today I wanna talk
about eating the Passover. Is it okay to hear me? Can you
hear me good? I don't have a problem most of
the time with my voice, but here in Exodus 12, look at verse eight. We're gonna
read verses eight through 11 and hopefully deal with them.
And they shall eat the flesh, and that night roast with fire,
and unleavened bread, and with bitter herbs shall they eat it.
Eat not of it raw, nor sodden at 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 thus shall you
eat it with your loins girded, your shoes on your feet, your
staff in your hand, and you shall eat it in haste. It is the Lord's
Passover. You know it's the blood, we talk
about eating the Passover, but it's the blood that cleanses
from sin, the blood. It's the blood that makes atonement
for the soul. God said, when I see the blood,
I'll pass over you. He said, I'll give you a token.
Down there in verse 13, the blood shall be for you a token. A token
means a sign. It's an evidence. Then when I see the blood, it'll
be a token upon the houses wherever you are. It'll be something that
I can see. And when I see that blood, I'm
gonna pass over you, and the plague, the plague of death shall
not be upon you, destroy you, but I will smite all the land
of Egypt. You know, he said, God says the
blood, that's what it takes, it takes the blood. Without the
shedding of blood, there's no remission of sins. The blood
is our place of safety. When there's behind that blood,
when they heard people screaming and crying while the firstborn
was dying, They heard them screaming and crying all over the land
of Egypt. When there's behind that blood,
there's a place of safety. It was a place of security. It
was a place of salvation. And that token shows that God's
satisfied with the blood. And He saw the blood. He was
satisfied with that lamb's blood that was put on those doors.
And He'll set all where the blood is seen. And that's why Christ
is a lamb slain without spot, without blemish before the Lord. And you know, being justified
by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. But let
me say this, so that blood, that's what washes away our sin, that's
what satisfied God. But it's the lamb eaten, the
lamb eaten, the lamb taken, And eaten that we come into fellowship
and communion with God Almighty. I read to you there this morning
about our Lord said, I'm that bread that came down from heaven.
I'm that bread. My flesh is that bread. My blood
is what, my body and my blood is what washes away sin. That's
what satisfies your soul and what take care of your sin. And
he said, that's what brings us into fellowship with God, is
taking the Lord Jesus Christ by faith and eating Him with
what we're doing this morning. We're taking part of the body
and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. What accomplished on the cross
by His body and the blood was shed on that cross. That's what
we're doing this morning. We're living by Christ. We're feeding on Christ. And
it's taking Christ by faith that it nourishes our mind. It does
something for our mind that nothing else will. It does something
for our souls. It does something for our hearts.
And I tell you, He is sufficient, Christ is sufficient for the
whole man. The mind, the soul, the body,
the spirit, the salvation, and our hearts and everything about
us. And God said, take a lamb, back here in verse three. He
says, you know, you take a lamb according to the house of the
fathers, a lamb for a house. That means, you know, you got
a lamb for us and a lamb for our children. A lamb for everybody
in our home, everybody in our house. And then it says down
in verse five, your lamb has to be without blemish. A lamb
without blemish. So that means you got to look
at him, you got to make sure there's no spot in him. And is
there any blemish in our Lord Jesus Christ? I heard a preacher
say the other day that Christ learned some things. Learned
some things when he was in this world. He was preaching on Jesus
Christ the same yesterday and forever. And he talked about
yesterday that Christ learned how to look upon a field and
use that field as an illustration. Christ never learned anything.
He all knew it. He always knew it. And I tell
you, he was without blemish. He's without blemish. And then
it says he has to be a male of the first year. He has to be
in his prime, he has to be in his strength. And then he says,
you shall keep it up. What does it mean, keep it up?
That means you keep him up 14 days, and every day you go out
there and look at that lamb. And you look at that lamb, and
you watch him, and you watch everything he's doing, and you
watch him, and you go out every day, and you look in the morning,
you look in the evening, and if there's a blemish in that
lamb, he can't be slain. And that's what our Lord Jesus
Christ was. He was examined. He was examined
by God, examined by his law, examined by justice, examined
by wrath, examined by man, and he still had no blemish. I had
no blemish. And I tell you, beloved, our
Lord Jesus Christ, and then it says the whole assembly of Israel
shall kill it, shall kill it. Now there were many lambs, many
lambs offered, and a lamb for a house, and yet they were all
beat as one. One lamb for God, and one lamb
for the people. And Christ our Passover is sacrificed
for us. Now let's look at how we're to
eat this Passover. Passover's been, the blood's
been shed, now it's time to eat it. And thus you'll eat the flesh,
and here's the first thing it says about it in verse eight.
Eat the flesh and that night roast with fire. That's the first
thing you got to have. That lamb's got to be roast with
fire. What does that mean? Fire is
emblematic of judgment. Judgment. God is a consuming
fire. The sacrifices was put on the
altar and blood, I mean that, and the fire consumed, it was
on a brazen altar, the fire consumed the sacrifice. But our Lord Jesus
Christ consumed the fire. And our Lord Jesus is the food
for our hearts as having suffered for us. Now what I mean, he passed
through the fire of God's wrath God's wrath. Hey Christ, our
food is our food for our hearts, having suffered for us. He passed
through the fire of God's wrath for us. There God's wrath come
beating on him. And I'll tell you the fire, and
that's why hell's gonna be so awful. Our Lord said it'd be
a fire that'll never be quenched. And he passed through the fire.
God's wrath came down on the Son of God. Christ's wrath, God's
wrath, come down as a consuming fire. And our Lord was so in
such pain and such agony that even his tongue swelled up in
his mouth. And I tell you what, we gotta
see him and know him as the one despised and rejected of men. And when our Lord Jesus, as we
see him on the cross, we see God's wrath poured out upon him. And I tell you, he had a cup
to drink. And that cup was full of our
sin. That cup was full of our rejection. That cup was full of our, that
cup was full of everything that Christ had to drink. Oh, listen,
I want you to, you keep this and look with me in Isaiah 63. Look what it says about our Lord.
You know our Lord Jesus Christ, bless His holy name, Oh my, has
to be roast with fire. I can't roast him. I can't roast
him. You can't roast him. Only one
place he's roasted. That's what God's wrath on him. God's justice burning at him.
God's wrath poured out on him. And oh, look what it says here.
And Isaiah 63, who is this that cometh from Edom? With dog garments
from Basra? Who is this that is glorious
in his apparel, traveling in the greatness of his strength?
Now I'll tell you, he tells us, he tells us, speaking of himself,
he says, I, the speaking righteousness, mighty to save, it's me. It's
me, the Lord Jesus, me. And then somebody says to him,
wherefore art thou red in thy apparel? And why art thou garments
like him that treads the wine press, the wine vat? And he answers
back, I've trodden the wine press alone. He by himself purged our
sins. And of the people there was none
with him. He didn't need no help from anybody.
For I'll tread them in my anger. I'll trample them in my fury,
and their blood shall be sprinkled upon my garments, and I'll stain
all my raiment. And here's the thing, the day
of vengeance, the day of the payment of sins, of God Almighty
coming down to pay for sins, and the year of my redeemed has
come. And I looked, and there's nobody to help. And I wondered
that there was none to uphold. He said, I have my own arm. My
own arm brought salvation unto me, and my fury it upheld me.
And I tell you, God put him on that cross. And our Lord Jesus
Christ, he tread the winepress of the fierceness of the wrath
of God by himself. And I tell you, it's Christ suffering,
suffering on that cross. Christ crucified.
Now listen to me, the cross itself doesn't save. You can put all
the crosses you want on a building, put them around your neck, put
them in fields all over America if you want to. But the cross
itself does not save. And if you could find a piece
of the cross, I tell you what, use it for toothpicks because
people will worship it. And like they do now, they worship
the cross now, but it's not the cross that saves. It's Christ
who was on that cross that saves. It was Christ who bore the curse
on that cross, that's what saves. Bearing our wrath, that's what
saves. Christ atoning for our sin, that's
what saves. And as they ate the lamb, roast
with fire, Christ, Christ must be trusted, must be looked to
as the one who suffered in your room instead. Peter said it like
this. He said, Christ once, hath once,
hath once suffered for our sins. That's what it said, once has
suffered for our sins. The just for the unjust. innocent
for the guilty. And listen to this, that he might
bring us to God. We can't come to God, he got
to bring us. And he brings us with his calling,
he brings us with his power, he brings us by his blood, he
brings us by sacrifice. So I tell you, you gotta be roast
with fire. Ain't you grateful? I'm so thankful
that I'll never ever have to bear the wrath of God, never
have to bear the judgment of God. You know why? My lamb, my
substitute, my redeemer has already suffered for me the judgment
of God. Here's the second thing about
eating the lamb. Look down in verse nine, here
in Exodus 12. Eat not of it raw. Don't eat it raw. Don't eat it
raw. Now you know the word substitution.
I seen this the other day. The word substitution is not
in the Bible. But everything concerning substitutions
in the Bible. He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquity. The chastisement of our peace
was upon him. He was wounded for all of our
transgressions. So that's substitution. He done
it for somebody else. And here it says, don't eat it
raw. We can never separate our Lord Jesus Christ from His atonement. It must be roasted. And let me
show you something. You keep this and look in Matthew
16. You know, there's a lot of people, they want Christ. They
want Christ, but they don't want Him. with His cross. They don't
want Him. You know, it's a, they want a
personal Savior. Oh, we got a personal Savior.
They want a Savior that loves them. They want a Savior that died
for them. But I tell you what, you can't
have Him without Him being roasted, so you can't eat it raw. I tell
you I want a personal Savior. There's a fella all the time.
He talks it about you know Come and let us show you the love
of God. Let us show you the love of Jesus You know when you see
the love of God and the love of Christ that more than any
place else in this universe on the cross God so loved the world
the world of his elect the world of sinners that he gave his only
begotten son. So we can't eat it raw. Oh, listen,
they want Christ without his cross. Christ without his sufferings. Oh, come and let us tell you
how to get along with your marriage. Come, let us tell you how to
manage your marriage. Come, let us tell you how to
be a good Christian. Come, let us go in discipleship. We'll make you a good disciple
for Jesus. Come, let us tell you how to
win souls. That's eating Christ raw. Look
what Peter said here in Matthew 16 and verse 21. Look what our Lord said. From that time forth began Jesus
to show unto his disciples how that he must go unto Jerusalem
and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and
scribes and be killed. Be killed. and be raised again
the third day. Now watch what Peter did. This
is what most people do. Then Peter took him and began
to rebuke him. Can you imagine people rebuking
the Lord? Oh, and you know what our Lord
said to him? He said, you're a devil. You're a devil. Get behind me. You don't want me with my cross.
You don't want me with my death. You don't want me with my blood.
You don't want me on the cross. You don't want me suffering.
Just get behind me, Satan. You know why? And he said, be it far from you,
Lord. Don't go through this. I want you, but I don't want
you dying. I don't want your blood. I don't
want you suffering. I don't want you to go on the
wrath of God. I don't want that. Get you behind
me, devil. You offend me. You're an offense
to me. You don't love, you don't taste,
to savor the things of God but those that be of men. Oh my,
did you see that? Then he says this, if any man
said unto his disciples, you gonna come to me? You deny yourself. You ain't got nothing to offer.
That's what he's saying. You ain't got nothing to bring.
You ain't got nothing to offer me. You deny yourself, and you
fake your cross, just like I am, and you follow me. You follow
me. Don't eat it raw. Don't eat it
raw. Christ without His sufferings.
Christ without His cross. Oh, people love Jesus as a prophet. They love Him as a great teacher.
They love Him as a historical person. Oh, what a wonderful
example Jesus' life was. Oh, they don't care if he's a
social worker. And feeds people. And that's
to eat the lamb raw. But don't dare approach God without
him being roasted with fire. The Jew said, I want a sign.
Give me somebody to dance. I want some proof. The Greeks
said, I want some wisdom. I want some philosophy. I don't
want something so simple as some man taking my place, bearing
my sin, just under God's wrath. I don't want that. I don't need
that. I want some kind of intellectual
exercise when the preacher preaches. I want him to use big words.
I want him to use flowery speeches. I want him to be educated. But you know what God said? God
made Christ unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption.
What do you need more than that? God made Christ that, huh? Oh
my. Now lads, here's another thing
back over here in our text. Don't eat it raw, gotta be roast
with fire. And then look there again in
verse nine. Don't eat it raw, or don't sodden it all with water. You know what that means, don't
you? Don't water it down. Don't water the gospel down.
Don't water Christ down. Don't let the atonement of Christ
be watered down. You know, I know some men that
I know they know the gospel. I've heard them preach the gospel.
And then they'll talk, they'll preach the gospel, and they'll
turn right around and water it down. They'll turn right around
and tell you, you know, you need to lead a separated life. They'll
turn right around and tell you that you got to live a holy life.
That's sodden with water. Our Lord Jesus said, I lay down
my life for the sheep. I lay down my life for the sheep.
You see this lamb that was slain was slain for Israel. It was
slain for a particular people. They didn't go out through Egypt
and Holland and everybody. Listen, God's going to come through
you tonight. And He's going to love you and
He's going to do everything He possibly can for you. Christ is going to... Christ
don't die. He's going to do His dead-level
best to save you if you'll let Him. If you'll take your faith,
here's the bread of Christ. If you'll take your faith and
put a little dab of that in there. Take your repentance and put
a little dab of that in there. Take your tears and put a little
dab of that in there. Take your honesty and put a little
dab of that in there. Take your goodness and put a
little dab of that in there. Take your church attendance,
put a little dab of that in there. And then, when you do all that,
then the Lord will save you. But that's not what our Lord
said. That's not what our Lord said. Huh? That's watering it
down. If you mix anything with Christ,
you're watering it down. Take anything away from the atonement
of Christ and you water it down. Oh my. I know a man that went
to Henry Mahan's for years. And I can mention his name and
everybody in this building just about know him. He's out in California
now in a big church out there. And you know what he said? You
know what he said? There was a time that he preached
the gospel, he preached for Todd, preached for me. And now you
know what he said? I can't preach particular redemption. I can't preach the love of God
and preach particular redemption at the same time because the
love of God, you can't preach it for everybody and preach particular
redemption at the same time. I can't. I can. You know what our Lord said?
When He prayed to the Father, He said, Father, I thank Thee
that Thou has given Him power over all flesh, all flesh, that's
everybody. But then He qualified it, that
I might give eternal life to as many as Thou has given me.
Now as many as, I wonder how many they are. This is what Jesus
Christ died for. You know, oh my. And then he said in John 17,
9, he said, I pray not for the world. The world, I'm not praying
for the world. I'm not praying for everybody
in the world. He said, you know who I'm praying
for? I'm praying for them that thou hast given me out of the
world. Huh? Oh my. All that the Father
giveth me, what they gonna do? They gonna come to me. And if
you take anything and tone that down, you've watered it down. Huh? Oh my. No wonder those people
said, this is a hard saying. This is a hard saying. How you
gonna eat my flesh and drink my blood? How are you going to
get life? Do you know you're going to get
life from me? From my body? From my blood? Well, what about
me? What part do I have in it? None. If you do, then it's sodden with
water. And that's why our Lord Jesus
Christ said, my sheep hear my voice. Those people didn't hear
it. But my sheep do. My sheep do. If Christ suffered for you, if
Christ is your Passover, then you do right now eating His flesh
and drinking His blood. If He died for the world and
everybody in it, everybody in this world would have to be saved.
That's how powerful His blood is. That's how effectual His
death is. That's how powerful His blood
is. But if everyone who He died for,
and we're not going to, oh my soul don't water it down. watered
down. How many preachers, how many
preachers never mention the cross? How many preachers, how many
preachers? I hope I'm not taking too long,
but let me tell you something. I listened to a preacher yesterday,
and they passed a law in Canada that if you preach against homosexuality,
and preach against transgender and sexual sins that you're subject
to five years in prison. It's considered a felony now.
So a bunch of preachers got together in America. They decided that
they was gonna preach against homosexuality, transgender, transvestite, never
heard of the trans you can think of, trans fat. But anyway, when
I said all that to say this, oh lots of people enjoyed it. You know the people that upset?
Would have been homosexuals and transgenders, that's the only
people that bothered. But it's not preaching against that that's
going to save a soul. And I know it's wrong and you
know it's wrong. But I'm not going to take a day
to do that. I'm not going to take one day out of watering
down the gospel, preaching against some sin that only God can do
something about. You know, man's sin, sin's his
problem. Not his sexual preference, sin's
his problem. A wicked heart's his problem.
And only God can do that. And I, you know, it's wonderful
that men can feel like they can do that. But God didn't call
me to preach against fangs. He called me to preach Christ
and Him crucified. To preach the gospel of the grace
of God. Ain't that right? And I tell ya, I was one of them,
out of 5,000 preachers, I was one of the millions that didn't.
But I tell ya, you know, but here, don't water it down. That's
watering it down. That's watering it down. Oh my,
then let me give you another one here. Here's another way
to eat the lamb. This is having fellowship with
God. Look what it says here now. And then in verse 11, right down
the last line, the last sentence in this, the last part of this,
he said, and ye shall eat it in haste. Exodus 12, and ye shall
eat it in haste. eat it in haste. What does that
mean? Eat it and start eating it right now. If you've never partook of Christ,
right now is the time to do it. If you've never eaten his flesh
and drunk his blood, right now is the time to eat it. He's already
been roasted. He's already shed his blood.
He's already died. He's already raised again. Eat
it in haste. Receive the Lord Jesus Christ
now. Don't wait. Don't wait. What are you waiting for? Are
you waiting for you to feel better about yourself? Waiting for yourself
to feel more sinful? Waiting for yourself to have
some kind of experience? Well, you're going to wait until
the cows come home if you're waiting for something to happen.
Huh? Come, come, come, come to Christ
right now. When you don't eat it in haste. When you don't eat it in haste.
You know that's why we love come worship. We're dead earnest about
coming here and worshiping. And I'll tell you what, just
eat it, just eat it right now. Eat it right now. When you ain't
looking for some feeling for some reason in yourselves, I don't see no reason in yourself.
All He sees is sin. Huh? And He told for that. If you look in some reason why
you ought not to believe or not. Looking at yourself is a very
sorrowful person to look at. And if you look for yourself
and something in yourself. You know what you'll find in
yourself? Nothing. Nothing God will accept. Nothing
God will approve of. I tell you. Or if you're looking
for some reason why God wouldn't receive you or some reason why
He won't. There's not a reason under God's
Son that He wouldn't receive you. And there ought not be a reason
in yourself why you won't come to Christ and eat Him right now.
His flesh is here. His blood is here. His atonement. He's already died. He's already
suffered. He's already risen. Huh? He ate it in haste. Oh, he ate
it in haste. The only thing is, are you hungry? Are you needy? I'll tell you
this. I can tell you this without a
shadow of a doubt. And I can tell you based on God's
Word. You come take the Lord Jesus
Christ and He'll satisfy your soul like nothing else in this
world can ever do. He'll meet the needs of your
heart, the need of your soul, the need of your mind, the need
of every part of you in this world. And He'll meet your needs
so much that you'll go to Him all the time. Give me some more. I want some more. I need some
more. I need you some more. Huh? And then let me give you
another. Here, back over here then in
verse 10, verse 10. And he said, and you shall let
nothing of it remain until the morning. What he's telling you, he said,
eat it all, eat it all. Eat all of it, eat it all. You'd let nothing of it remain.
We got to have a whole Christ, a whole Lamb, or none of Him. We get all of Him, or none of
Him. And I tell you, some want His example, but they don't want
His doctrine. They don't want His teaching.
They don't want His doctrine. That's why they said, this is
hard doctrine. They said in John 3, it's hard
doctrine. Some want His doctrine. Oh, they
want to be a strong Calvinist. They want to be strong in their
doctrine. But they don't care a thing in
the world about how He tells them to love, and be gracious,
and be kind, and be tender-hearted, and be generous, and be merciful,
and be kind, and be loving, and forgiving. You know, they don't
want His precepts. But I tell you what, nothing
of Him must be left. There's no more, no more in Christ
than a sinner absolutely needs. No more in Him than you need.
If He's going to be your substitute, listen to me now. If He's going
to be your substitute and take your place, He's going to also
be your King. If He's going to be your Savior,
then He's got to also be your Lord. Not the Lord just only to trust,
but also to say, Lord, what will thou have me do? What, oh Lord,
not my will, but thine be done, but to obey him. He's not only
our justification, but he's also our sanctification. As Christ
divided, that's why he said up there, eating with the legs and
the head and the pertinence, take everything about him. You
gotta have Him all. And I'll tell you what, if you
have Him all, I'm gonna tell you something, He's gonna have
you all. If you get all of Him, He gets all of you. I'll tell you that, I've said
this before. They say, well, Christ didn't
make us automatons. We got a responsibility. But
I'll tell you what, I would love to be an automaton, you know,
like a robot. And I would that God took such
control of me that I would never think anything, think and never
have a sinful thought, never do a sinful action, never say
a sinful word, never look with a sinful eye, never take a sinful
step. I'd love to be like that. But
one of these days I am. You know when? One of these days
I'm going to be like that. When I draw my last breath, that's
when I'm going to be. Oh, I'll be that way. Right now,
as far as God's concerned, I'm already that way. But oh, one
of these days I'll be that way. And then let me hurry on here.
I hope I'm not taking too much time. But look here in verse
8. You shall eat the flesh that
night, roast with fire, and then look what it says, with unleavened
bread. You always got to have unleavened
bread. You know, and Paul said, purge
out the old leaven. The leaven of tradition. The
leaven of works, of merit, of envy, and malice. And you know,
we know this well as I do, leaven was typical of sin. A little
leaven leavens the whole lump. And it's also a typical of hypocrisy. Our Lord said, beware of the
loving of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. So we got to, when
we come to Christ, we come sincerely, honestly, honestly. Ralph Barnard, Bruce and I was
talking about, Ralph Barnard said this, God does not send
an honest man to hell. And this is one place you'll
be honest. You better be honest before God. and God will make
you an honest man. God will make you honest before
Him. You'll exactly acknowledge what Him says about you. You'll
acknowledge what He says about Himself. He'll acknowledge what
you, how He's supposed to be worshipped. I mean, what I'm
telling you is, beloved, we get the whole Christ, and we absolutely
acknowledge everything about Him, and one thing we despise
about ourselves is our hypocrisy. It's our hypocrisy. Huh? Oh, we got to have the old of
him. We got to be honest with the
Lord. If you're going to trifle, don't trifle with the Lord. If
you're going to play act, go out to the playhouse out there
and join in the play. Or go learn how to act. But don't
play act with God. If you want to pretend, don't
do it here. No, no. No, no. That's why Paul said, you know,
purge out that old leaven. Purge it out, them old traditions.
I tell you, I ain't looking back to anything I believed, anything
I trusted in, any act I ever did. I'm not even looking back
to yesterday. I'm looking to Christ today. I don't know if I ever told you
all this before, but years ago, I know I've told you this, but
the fellows working on our house, when we was building our house,
and they was up on ladders up in the gable end of it. So this
is back in 78, I guess. And I asked one of them while
I was going to have a meeting over in Vandiver, in that old
building over there. And I said, well, you know what?
I'm going to be preaching Old Vendor. I hope you fellas come.
And they both lived over there. I said, I'd love for you fellas
to come and hear me. And one of them hollered down and said,
well, there's too many hypocrites. I said, well, come on. One more won't make a bit of
difference. No, ain't that the truth? Yeah. We all got enough hypocrisy in
us to send a multitude to hell. But oh, we don't want to be one.
We don't want to be one. Oh my, we don't want to be one.
Oh God keep us. And then let me give you another
one here. I'm about to wind it up. Look here in verse 8. They shall eat the flesh, and
that night roast with fire and unleavened bread, and listen
to this, with bitter herbs shall ye eat it. Now them bitter herbs
was given to make the lamb taste better. Make a lamb taste better. And I tell you what, you know
what makes the lamb taste better to us than the sweet savor Christ
tasted? When you remember the bitterness of your bondage, how
sinful you was, how in bondage you was, how bound you were.
Oh my, and Christ saved you from that sin. That makes Christ smell
so sweet. And oh my, and the bitter herbs
of repentance. Oh my, having to admit what we
were, the bitter herbs of owning ourself as we are before God.
The bitter herbs of our unworthiness. The bitter herbs of our poorness
of spirit. And listen to me, there are always,
always bitter herbs that will go with believing. Bruce Crabtree's tasting bitter
herbs. Joe's tasting bitter herbs. They're
having bitter herbs in their life right now. You've had bitter
herbs, and you'll always have bitter herbs. Every time you
go through a trial, every time you go through something, bitter
herbs. Bitter herbs, huh? Oh, our afflictions, our trials,
our sin, all of these things make Christ so much sweeter to
us. If you eat the lamb, the bitter herbs go with him. If
you're gonna have Christ, he said, Paul said, if we suffer
with him, if we suffer with him, we'll also be glorified with
him. And I'll tell you what, the bitter
herbs go with him. And who cares what bitter herbs?
Who cares what we have to go through in this life? As long
as we have the lamb, And as long as we can enjoy Him, and the
bitter herbs makes Him so much tastier, so much precious, so
much sweeter to our taste. Oh, listen, let me tell you something. If God gave us nothing, nothing
but sweetness, we'd be the sorriest bunch of people to ever live.
We would. Your mama used to say, all the
time, going out here, she'd say, she was way up in her 80s, and
her, the Lord's weaning me from the world. How does the Lord
wean somebody 90 from the world? That's what she'd say. He's weaning
me from the world. Oh, listen, he knows how to wean
us, don't he? He knows how to wean us. And I want to be weaned.
I want to be weaned. Oh my, well, here's the last
one. I think that you'll love this
one. Look down in verse 11. And thus shall you eat it with
your loins girded and shoes on your feet and your staff in your
hand. Oh my, when we're taking this
lamb, we're already dressed to go. We're a traveling people,
we're pilgrims and we're strangers in this world. This world is
not our home. He said, David, listen, you're
leaving this place. So you leave your clothes on,
you leave your shoes on, you leave everything, because you're
leaving this place, you got to be dressed, and I won't, listen,
when this is over and done with, you're leaving here. Oh my, this
world's not our home. Oh my, we started our exodus,
just like Israel coming out of Egypt, we started our exodus.
Where are we going? Heading for the promised land.
Heading for the promised land. Oh my. You know, we were looking for
a city. Abraham, he dwelt in tents with
Jacob and Isaac. They traveled around in a tent
and they had no continuing city here. But they was looking for
a city whose builder, oh builder, You reckon God would build a
city? What kind of city would God build? And he said, whose builder and
maker is God. We're looking for that. We're
looking for that. That's what I'm looking for.
And that's why he said also here, we have no continuing city, but
we look for one to come. Bruce told me this morning, he's
going to preach on how beautiful heaven must be. Well, I'm sure he'll do a wonderful
job with it. But I do know this. He said, you have your loins
girt about. That's what he says. Let your
loins be girted. Do you know what our loins are
girt about with? With the truth. We're girted with the truth.
The truth. And then we got a helmet on.
What is that helmet called? The helmet of salvation? Huh? What's our garment that we got
on? The robe of righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. What
kind of shoes do we got on? We're shod with the preparation
of the gospel of peace. Huh? That's pretty good traveling
clothes, ain't it? Well, We had another meal, God fed
us again. I said, God fed us, ain't you
grateful he feeds us? His precious word, oh what a
blessed word it is. Our Father in the blessed name,
oh that glorious name, that precious name, that bloody sacrifice of
our Lord Jesus Christ. who put sin away by the sacrifice
of himself, who's now entered into glory, sitting at the right
hand of God on his throne. Lord, we come to praise you.
Oh, Lord, thank you for the gospel. Thank you for our Lord Jesus
Christ. Thank you for the lamb roasted. Thank you for the lamb,
your flesh and your blood that was given for us. Oh Lord, bless
this gospel this morning to the hearts, the mind, the understanding.
Forgive me of everything that's unlike you. God bless our dear
brethren that's going through trials. Bless Joyce and let them
find out what's wrong with her and let her come home and be
with her family. We ask these things in our Lord Jesus' name.
Amen. Amen. We're going to sing this
one verse and then you're liberty to go. There is a fountain filled
with blood drawn from Emmanuel's veins. And sinner's blood beneath
that flood loose all the guilty stains. the guilty stains. Lose all the guilty stains. And sinners plunge beneath that
flood. Lose all the guilty We're going
to sing the last verse. Dear dying lamb, thy precious
blood shall never lose its power. Till all the ransomed church
of God be safe to sin no more. Be safe to sin no more. Oh Lord bless you. Be safe to
sin no more. be saved, be saved, be saved
to sin no more. Oh my. You know