All right, if you wouldn't open
your Bibles with me to Exodus chapter 12. Exodus chapter 12. We'll read the first 14 verses. And the Lord spake unto Moses
and Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying, this month shall be unto
you the beginning of months. It should be the first month
of the year to you. Speak ye unto all the congregation of
Israel, saying in the 10th day of this month, they shall take
to them every man a lamb, according to the house of their fathers,
a lamb for an house. And if the household be too little
for the lamb, let him and his neighbor next unto his house
take it according to the number of the souls. Every man according
to his eating shall make your count for the lamb. Your lamb
should be without blemish, a male the first year. You should take
it out from the sheep or from the goats, and you should keep
it up until the 14th day of the same month. And the whole assembly
of the congregation of Israel shall kill it in the evening.
And they shall take of the blood and strike it on the two side
posts and on the upper door post of the houses wherein they shall
eat it. And they shall eat the flesh in that night, roast with
fire and unleavened bread, and with bitter herbs they shall
eat it. Eat not of it raw, nor sodden it 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 should burn with fire. And thus shall
you eat it, with your loins girded, your shoes on your feet, and
your staff in your hand. And you shall eat it in haste.
It is the Lord's Passover. For I will pass through the land
of Egypt this night and will smite all the firstborn in the
land of Egypt, both man and beast. And against all the gods of Egypt,
I will execute judgment. I am the Lord. And the blood
should be to you for a token upon the houses where you are.
And when I see the blood, I'll pass over you. And the plague
should not be upon you to destroy you when I smite the land of
Egypt. And this day should be unto you
for a memorial and you shall keep it a feast to the Lord throughout
your generations. You should keep it a feast by
an ordinance forever. Thank God for his word. Let's
bow together. Our father, we bow before you
this evening, a thankful people. How thankful we are that by your
mercy and grace, by the blood and the sacrifice, the righteousness
of your son, that sinful men and women such as we are can
come before your throne accepted, accepted into beloved and call
you our father. Oh, how thankful we are. Father,
we're thankful for your sovereign, electing, redeeming, regenerating,
keeping grace. Oh, how we thank you that you,
in your eternal purpose, purposed to save a sinful people. As you
sent your son in the fullness of time to fully redeem those
people by his sacrifice. Father, we're so thankful. Father,
I pray that this evening that we might be enabled by thy spirit
to look into your word. To see the Lord Jesus Christ.
The scene with eyes of faith. To have our hearts burst within
us. The amazing truth. The truth
is beyond the ability of human tongue to tell that the son of
God would sacrifice himself to put away the sin of his people,
to satisfy justice for them, that your justice may pass over
us because your justice was fully exhausted upon Christ our substitute. Father, enable us tonight to
worship. I pray that you would deliver us from just going through
the motions of religion. Don't let us just have a religious
service. But Father, speak to us by your
word. Enable us to believe. Enable us to believe and rest
upon our Lord Jesus Christ. And Father, we thank you for
this past year. We thank you for the blessings
of it. We thank you for the trials of it, but you've been pleased
to teach your people. Father, we especially thank you
that you've seen fit to keep your promise to your people,
that you'd not leave nor forsake them, In the trials and difficulties
that you've seen of this life, you've also seen grace that's
been sufficient. We're thankful. Father, I ask
you to bless us again. Bless us as we look into your
word to end this old year and begin the new one by looking
to Christ our Savior. It's in his precious name, for
his sake we pray, amen. I've titled message this evening. First things for the new year. I suppose it's human nature at
this time of year for folks to kind of evaluate themselves at
the end of the year and make resolutions or make decisions.
What can I do differently? What can I do better in this
coming new year? I don't blame people for making
those resolutions. I long ago quit making them because
I saw how I never kept them, so why bother? And I don't know
how much you know about, you really want to change in this
new year. Nothing about this gospel, nothing about this worship
of God we have. I don't want to change that at
all. Our text gives us five things that are the most important things
for the believer. in this new year and really in
every year of our lives. These five things are the basic
truths that form the foundation of faith for every believer.
And I think since this is the end of the old year, the beginning
of the new year, it'd be a good time to review these five things. These are the most important
primary things. I'll show you where I got my
title for the message this evening. Look at verse one of Exodus 12.
And Lord spake unto Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying,
this month shall be unto you the beginning of months. It should
be the first month of the year to you. And the word beginning
there doesn't just mean the start of the year. It means the chief
thing. It's the top thing, the principal
thing. And the first, he said, this
will be the first month of the year to you. That doesn't mean
the first chronologically. It means the primary thing. So
this day, The Lord's getting ready to explain to them this
day, this ceremony that they will observe as a picture of
Christ. What's happening on this day is so important. It changed the whole calendar.
I mean, you just turned the year upside down. Can you imagine?
April is now January. I mean, the whole year just gets
turned on its ear, gets turned upside down, doesn't it? That's
what happened to the Jews. Their whole calendar got turned
upside down because what's happening on this day is so important. Now the gospel that's preached
in a picture in this first Passover contains the chief things, the
primary things, the most important truths of the gospel that we
believe. And I'm telling you this, If
God ever gives you faith to believe it, it'll change you completely. It'll turn your whole world upside
down. Everything's going to change. So here's the first thing we
learned from this day. There must be a lamb for the sacrifice.
Verse three, speak ye unto all the congregation of Israel, saying
in the 10th day of this month, they shall take to them every
man a lamb, according to the house of their fathers, a lamb
for a house. Daniel, really this is the theme
of the whole Old Testament. There's got to be a lamb. There's
got to be a lamb for the sacrifice. If you didn't know anything about
the Bible whatsoever, and you just thought, well, I'm going
to read it like I do any other book. I'm going to start at page one
and just read through it. As you read through the Old Testament,
if you didn't know anything at all about the New Testament,
you'd think, I better start herding sheep because I need a bunch
of lambs. If I'm going to have all these
sacrifices, I got to have a bunch of lambs. That's what you think,
isn't it? Well, we do have the Old Testament or the New Testament. So here's what we know. All these
Old Testament lambs and bullocks and rams and goats, all these
animals that were sacrificed, they're all pictures. They're
pictures of somebody who's coming. We know the blood of those animals
never did take away any sin. The blood of bulls and goats
can never take away sin. But this is what we know by God's
grace. Aren't you glad to live at this time where we have the
New Testament to explain the Old Testament? We know that Christ
has come. He's come as the Lamb of God. It's no accident John the Baptist,
when he first identified the Savior as he began his public
ministry, behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin
of the world. This is the one all of the Old
Testament promised was coming. And he's going to do what all
those bulls, all those rams, all those sheep, all those sacrifices,
all those turtle doves, those rivers and rivers and rivers
of blood that they shed. He's going to do what no animal
sacrifice could ever do. He's going to take away the sin
of his people. And that's just what he did.
We know this from the New Testament that Christ has come and his
blood did what he intended for it to do. It took away the sin
of his people. Now all the lambs offered in
the Old Testament were pictures of Christ that would come. And
the Passover lamb, boy, it's a clear one. I mean, such a clear
picture of Christ. First, the Passover lamb was
taken for a specific people, wasn't it? Lord told Moses and
Aaron, you tell the people, take a lamb for a house. That lamb was the sacrifice for
a specific house. or a specific person in a specific
house. The lamb was a substitute for
the firstborn in this house, in this house. The lamb wasn't
a substitute for the Egyptian's firstborn, was it? This lamb's
not a substitute for the neighbor's or the fellow across the street
for his firstborn. This lamb is a substitute for
the firstborn in this house. That's pretty specific, isn't
it? Well, that's a picture of Christ our Savior. He came to
be the substitute for a specific people, for God's elect, for
spiritual Israel. Christ didn't come to shed his
blood for every son of Adam and see who might decide to accept
him. That wasn't the way this Passover lamb sacrificed, was
it? It was sacrificed for a specific person. So was the Lord Jesus
Christ. He was sacrificed for his bride.
So he's sacrificed for a specific person and the Passover lamb
had to be perfect. Verse five, your lamb should
be without blemish. A male of the first year, you
should take it out from the sheep or from the goats. See, the lamb
selected to be the Passover lamb. You know, if a fella has a bunch
of lamb, we call them a herd or what do you call them? That's
a bunch of sheep. He can't pick out an old one or sick one. One that's gonna die, you know,
soon anyway. The lamb that's selected for
this sacrifice has to be in the prime of his life. when he's
got the most physical strength. Because when this lamb dies at
the appointed hour, when all of Israel kills it together in
the evening, this lamb's not going to die of old age. He's
not going to die because he was sick. This lamb's going to die
because his life was sacrificed. This lamb died as a substitute
so that the firstborn could live. And this lamb must be perfect
because he's a picture. picture of Christ, the lamb of
God. You know, the Lord Jesus Christ
came, and this is just an historical fact that everybody knows. Jesus
of Nazareth died on a cross. But the Lord Jesus didn't die
on the cross against his will. He didn't lose his life because
he finally didn't have the strength to live anymore. The Lord Jesus
gave his life a ransom for many. When it came time for him to
die, when the sacrifice was complete, the transaction was done, what
happened? He had to give up the ghost.
It couldn't be taken from him. He gave up the ghost. He died
willingly as a substitute for his people so that his people
would never die. And this land to be sacrificed,
it had to be perfect. It couldn't have any blemishes.
It couldn't have any bruises or mange or missing limbs. It
couldn't have any hidden defect. Verse six, and you should keep
it up until the 14th day of the same month. And the whole assembly
of the congregation of Israel shall kill it in the evening.
Now that lamb had to be watched for 14 days, make sure it didn't
have any hidden disease or something. And I'll tell you why that had
to be done, because this lamb's a type of Christ. The Lord Jesus
lived roughly 33 and a half years as a man on this earth. He spent
three and a half of those years in a public ministry. And all
during that time, men watched him intensely. They watched. They watched closely because
they were trying to find some fault in him. They're trying
to find some fault in his conduct. They're trying to find some fault
in his doctrine. They were trying to find some
fault in what he did. And they watched and watched
and watched and watched and watched. And they couldn't find any fault
in him. And they knew it. When the Pharisees decided we
finally had enough, we're gonna put this man to death and wash
our hands of this man, what did they do? They had to find witnesses
who were willing to lie. Because nobody could truthfully
say they saw any fault in him. Pilate, I mean this is a heathen
man, summed it up for everybody, I find no fault in him. And you know what else? Much
more importantly than that, the all seeing eye of the father
didn't see any imperfection in him either. Saw no sin, saw no
fault. He saw he was perfect. The father
watched as his son became a man and he watched him. He fully
pleased his father by obeying his law perfectly. He did everything
that the father sent him to do perfectly. In word, in deed,
even in motive and heart. Haven't you done the right thing
sometimes but grumbled in your heart? Never the Lord. Never. Always with a perfect,
pure motive. Now here's why the perfection
of Christ is so important, that he was sinless. If the Lord Jesus Christ is not
sinless, he can't save anybody. He could not put away the sin
of others if sin was in himself. If sin had tainted his blood,
his blood wouldn't be able to wash anybody else from their
sin. But since the Lord Jesus Christ is perfect, his blood
atoned, his blood covered, his blood washed away the sin of
all of his people so that it's gone forever. See, he could only
do that if he was perfect. And the death of Christ as a
substitute for his people satisfied the justice of his father. The
death of Christ paid the debt in full. There's no more debt. If Christ died for you, there's
no more debt. Almighty God has no reason to
be angry with you if Christ died for you. There's no more sin.
The blood of Christ put it away. And that's why the father can
pass over his people. When he comes in judgment, in
justice, he can pass over his people because the blood of his
son atone for the sin of his people and put it away. The father
is never going to kill anybody. He's never going to condemn anybody
to the second death if Christ died for them because Christ
already died. And he's only demanding one death
for one sin. That's what happened on this
first Passover. When the Lord passed over the houses, why did
he pass over? Why did he kill the firstborn
in this Egyptian household? and pass over the house of this
Jew. Why did he do that? Because there's
blood on the door. And you know what the blood said? There's already been death in
this house tonight. No need for another one. He could pass over
that house. His justice could pass over that
house in truth. And the same thing is true all
of God's people. God's justice is gonna pass over
them because Christ, the Lamb of God, has died in their place.
as their substitute. Now, there must be a land. I
mean, that's just the most obvious thing. Anybody that can understand
the English language, start reading the Bible, can understand this.
There's got to be a land, doesn't there? That's the first thing. That's the primary thing, isn't
it? Now, I'll tell you what the primary thing for you and me
to do. Now, there's got to be a land. The primary thing for
you and me to do is to seek Him. And that's my second point. There
must be a lamb for me. For me. Now there had to be a
lamb, didn't there? Had to be a lamb for every firstborn.
Every firstborn, the lamb had to be slain. The blood had to
be applied to the door of his house. It didn't matter if there
was a lamb next door and that lamb was sacrificed and that
lamb was eaten and the blood was put on his neighbor's door. It had to be on his house, on
his door. If not, God passed through justice
and judgment that night, he's gonna die. If there's not blood
on his door, there's got to be a lamb for me. Now here's the
picture. It's not just good enough to
know there's got to be a sacrifice for sin. The people of Adam's
race are sinful and there's got to be a sacrifice for their sin.
Now that's true, but that's not good enough just to know that.
It's not good enough just to know this. The lamb must be killed. That's true. The lamb must be
killed. He must be sacrificed, but that's not good enough. What
I need is the Holy Spirit to show me I need a lamb sacrifice
for me, for my sin. See, here's, here's the problem.
We're born in this world with Adam's nature. Adam, after he
fell, he became blind. mind became dead so it couldn't
see the obvious. I mean, just one proof I'll give
you of that is Adam's trying to hide from God. Hide from God. And he tries to blame his sin
on God. Only a mind that don't work is gonna try to do that.
You and I come into this world with that same dead mind. And
we think we're just fine. We're just, I'm doing the best
that I can, and we think that's good enough. And here's what
I need the Holy Spirit to teach me. I need the Holy Spirit to
teach me, Brady, I'm the sinner. I'm the sinner. I mean, you don't
have to be right bright to look out at the world and see everybody
else is a sinner, do you? I mean, it's just not hard to
see a sin nature in everybody else. My problem is I don't see
it in me, because I'm spiritually blind. And I need God to teach
me I'm the chief of sinners. This is what I mean. This is
get right down to brass tacks. This is what I need God to teach
me. God's gonna be just if he sends me to hell. That's a fact. Now, there's not
a person ever born in this world was born in this world knowing
that. We all think just the opposite. God can be just to send me to
hell. Unless Christ the lamb. He suffers and dies for my sin. He suffers and dies for me because
that's what I deserve. You see, this thing of putting
away my sin, it can't be left to chance. It can't be left to
chance. I need God to come and save me
on purpose because if any part of my salvation is left up to
me, I'm going to fail. I'm going to fail. If it's left
up to my decision, Brother, God's gonna send me to hell. If it's
up to my morality and my orthodoxy and my faithfulness, God's gonna
send me to hell. I need God to come and do all
of the saving for me. I need him to do it on purpose.
Well, here's the good news of the gospel. The Lord Jesus Christ
came and he died. He died for a specific people. He died for the people that the
Father gave him to save, God's elect. And all of those people
shall be saved. They shall be. They can't perish
because the perfect lamb died in their place. The Apostle Paul
said in 1 Corinthians 5, verse 7, Christ, our Passover, is sacrifice
for us. Well, who's the us? It's God's
people. The people that God gave to his
son, And those people shall be saved. They shall be. Now, the
first thing, the most important thing for you and me is that
we seek Christ to be my Savior. I implore you, you seek Christ
to be your Savior, your Savior. The first thing, the most important
thing for me is to come fall to feet of Christ and beg him
to have mercy on my sinful soul. I can't make myself one of the
elect, can you? Can't do that. But I've made myself a sinner,
and I know this, I need mercy. Well, the first thing I can do,
primary thing, the most important thing, is beg God for mercy,
because I can't live without it. I can't live without Christ.
I can't live without his sacrifice for me. I need Christ to die
for me. to die for me. I've said this
before, and it's worth repeating, because if you don't know Christ,
you don't get it yet. You hear us talk, I'd say probably
in every message, at some point you hear us say something about
God's elect, don't you? And we think, well, if I'm one
of God's elect, I'll be saved. Well, you know, I don't come
to Christ because I know I'm one of God's elect. Christ came to
save sinners. Well, I know I'm a sinner. You come to Christ and beg for
mercy because you're a sinner. You'll find out soon enough you
came because God was calling you first. I came because God
chose me first. But God's not going to reveal
to you you're one of his elect first. First thing he's going
to reveal to you is you're a sinner who needs a Savior. Here's the
Savior. Here he is being lifted up in
the preaching of the gospel. Now you come to him begging for
mercy. And when he shows mercy on you, you'll find out soon
enough. Oh, I was one of God's elect all along. I just didn't
know it. I just didn't know it. I need Christ to die for me. And here's the third thing. The
blood of the lamb has got to be applied to me. It's got to
be applied to me. Verse seven. and they shall take
of the blood and strike it on the two side posts and an upper
door post of the houses wherein they shall eat it. Now, why is
it so important the blood of the lambs got to be on the outside
of that house? It's got to be on the sides of
the door and the top of the door. Why is that so important? Well,
the Lord tells us down here in verse 12. For I will pass through
the land of Egypt this night and will smite all the firstborn
in the land of Egypt, both man and beast, and against all the
gods of Egypt, I will execute judgment. I am the Lord, and
the blood shall be to you for a token upon the houses where
you are. And when I see the blood, I'll
pass over you. And the plague shall not be upon
you to destroy you when I smite the land of Egypt. Now on this
night, God's passing through in judgment. Now sin demands
death. There's got to be death in every
house. Either the firstborn's gonna
die or the substitute's gonna die, but there's got to be death
in every house. And when God sees the blood on
the door, the side post and across the top, this is what he knows.
There's already been death in this house tonight. His justice
can pass over. Now we know this, the blood's
got to be shed, doesn't it? There must be payment. Must be
payment. The only payment that God will
accept is perfect blood. The blood of Christ must be shed.
He must be sacrificed. There's got to be death for sin.
But listen, the blood also must be applied to the doorposts.
It must, even if everything else is done right. The lamb is selected. It's a perfect lamb. It's washed
for 14 days. There's no hidden defects. The
correct appointed hour, that lamb is sacrificed, its throat
is slit, the blood is caught in the basin, the body is roast
with fire. I eat the lamb with my shoes
on my feet and my staff in my hand. I eat it in haste, just
like God said to do. If I do everything right and
don't put the blood on the door, the firstborn's gonna die. I
mean, that's how important this thing is. The blood must be applied. Now here's the picture. Christ,
the Lamb of God, must die as my substitute. There's got to
be death for sin, either me or Christ, either me or my substitute.
There's got to be death for sin. Well, I know this. I said this
earlier. It's just an historical fact. Christ has died. Everybody
knows this. The Lord Jesus died on a cross
on Calvary's Mountain. Now he's died. His blood has
been shed. He took the blood before the
Father, didn't he? But now his blood must be applied
to my heart. or I'm gonna perish. Now when
scripture speaks of the blood applied to our hearts, this is
what it's talking about. It's talking about the new birth.
There's got to be a new birth where there's a new righteous
nature born. David talked about it in Psalm
51, verse seven. He says, purge me with hyssop
and I shall be clean. Wash me and I shall be whiter
than snow. Now, why did David say, perch
me with hyssop? Why did he say perch me with
blood? Why did he say perch me with hyssop? Because hyssop is
how the blood is applied. Hyssop, that's why they took
this hyssop, it's some little plant, and they took that hyssop
and dipped it in blood and put it on the doorpost with the hyssop.
The other thing I remember about hyssop is this. On the Day of
Atonement, the high priest would dip that hyssop into blood and
sprinkle it. That's how he'd sprinkle that
blood. Hyssop is the blood being applied. This is what David's
saying, Lord, if you apply the blood of Christ in my heart,
I'll be clean. I'll be righteous. If you give
me a new nature, I'll be righteous. Now I want to show you this because
this is important. I don't want you to just take my word for it.
Look at Titus chapter two. Titus chapter two. Verse 13, looking for that blessed
hope and the glorious appearing of the great God and our savior,
Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us, that he might redeem
us from all iniquity. He's going to redeem us. He's
going to put away the sin of his people. He's going to pay
the sin debt, redeem us from all iniquity and purify unto
himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works that Christ gave
himself. He shed his blood to pay the
sin debt of his people, to redeem them. But that same blood also
purifies the hearts of his people and gives them a new nature.
When that blood of Christ is applied to our hearts, that's
how we're purified, given a new nature. This old nature cannot
be made pure. God's going to put it in the
ground, get rid of it. The only way we're purified is
God gives us a new nature. Preacher, how do you know that's
what Paul's saying here in Titus? Fair question. Look at Hebrews
chapter 9, and I can show you. See, if you want to find out
what Scripture means, read the rest of Scripture. Get a commentary
on it. Here's what Paul, this is what
he's saying. The writer of Hebrews says the
same thing. Hebrews 9 verse 11. But Christ, being come a high
priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect
tabernacle, not made with hands. That is to say, not of this building,
neither by the, by the blood of goats and calves, but by his
own blood. He entered in once into the holy
place, having obtained eternal redemption for us. The blood
of Christ was shed. He took it before the father.
Redemption was accomplished. The price was paid. I read on
verse 13. For the blood of bulls and of
goats and the ashes of an heifer, sprinkling the unclean sanctified
to the purifying of the flesh, And all that is talking about
is the ceremonial blood and sprinkling of the blood and all that that
was going on in the Old Testament, that never purified anybody.
God just accepted it as a ceremony, it was a picture of Christ. Verse
14, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal
spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience
from dead works to serve the living God? Now in the new birth,
When the blood is applied to the hearts of God's people, they
receive a brand new nature, a nature that's holy and righteous. That
nature trusts Christ. It believes Christ. It rests
upon Christ. And here's the evidence that
you've been born again. Here's the evidence. You think,
well, that sounds very mysterious. How can I tell if I've been born
again? Do you trust Christ? Do you trust him to be everything
that you need? Paul, or the writer to the Hebrews,
whoever that was here, talks about the conscience. If you've
been born again, your conscience is gonna quit telling you to
do good works in order to please God. Because Christ already did
that for you. His obedience pleased God for
you. His sacrifice pleased God for you, and you trust in Christ. Now see, only the new nature
that God gives is gonna believe that. So I need God, the Holy
Spirit, to apply that blood to me and make me be born again.
I was in a conversation with a man one time, said, now the
work of the Spirit, that's not nearly as important as the work
of Christ in redemption. He actually didn't think that
the work of the Father was as important as the work of the
Son in redemption. I said, let me ask you this. Can you awaken
Christ's likeness and glory without it? Without the work of the Holy
Spirit, cause you to be born again? No, sir. No more than
that firstborn could live if the blood wasn't applied to the
door. See that? I need God to give me a new nature,
cause me to be born again. And here's the other thing about
applying the blood. Look back in our text. The father,
the head of the home, he selected the lamb. He went out there at
the right time, he slipped that lamb, and he caught the blood
in the basin. He roast the lamb, the whole
lamb, the pertinence thereof, and he took that blood and he
applied it to the door. And he went in, closed the door,
sat down, and ate the firstborn. Or ate the firstborn, ate the
lamb. His firstborn sat right there
next to him. I bet you his mama was on the other side of him,
don't you think? That's how it'd be in my house. I don't know
about your house. That's how it'd be in my house. That father had nothing to worry
about. That firstborn had nothing to
worry about, because the blood had been applied to the door.
Why did the father apply the blood to the door? He believed
God. He believed God would pass over
his house and not kill his firstborn if he put the blood on the door,
because that's what God said to do. He believed God. That's the only
reason he'd go out there and put that blood on that door.
Here's the fourth point. I must believe Christ. I must
believe. I must trust my soul to Christ.
Verse eight, and they, they should eat the flesh and that night
roast with fire and unleavened bread and with bitter herbs,
they should eat it. Now they're going to eat this
lamb in a specific way, eat it with bitter herbs. And I'll tell
you what that's a picture of is repentance. And repentance
is not, I'm going to quit sin. I'm going to turn over a new
leaf and start doing better. That's my new year's resolution. I'm
going to turn over a new leaf. Repentance is a turning. I start
believing something that's totally the opposite of what I used to
believe. Repentance is just this. It's quit trusting my works and
turn to trust Christ. That's what repentance is. That's
what the bitter earth represents. That's bitter to the flesh, to
give up my works, to give up my credit, to give up my glory,
to give up everybody's telling me how good I am. I got to give
that up and trust Christ alone. That's bitter to the flesh, isn't
it? I can't be saved without it.
I cannot be saved trusting Christ and trusting me too. Saving faith,
trust Christ alone, which is verse nine says, 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, the whole lamb had to
be eaten." See, if I would be saved, I must believe the whole
Christ. Christ must be everything to me. Eating the whole Christ
means this. I believe everything the word
of God says about the Savior. Everything. Man, I can't take
a partial Christ. I can't take what I like of what
I read and discard the rest and do something else that I like,
I have to take the whole Christ. It's salvation is all Christ. And when I believe Christ, that's
what I'm saying, I believe he's all, he's all I need. Verse 10,
and you should let nothing of it remain until the morning,
and that which remaineth of it until the morning you should
burn with fire. See, none of this land could be wasted. None
of it could be thrown away. You couldn't save some of it,
you know, as leftovers. And you know how you do. You
have some leftovers, and you forget they're in the refrigerator.
And men say, oh, I'm going to eat that. Your wife says, no,
no, no, don't eat that. That's how many every day is old, you
know. In our house, I don't care if it's been more than a day.
I mean, the number of days changes. You all don't need to know this,
but I got to say it. The number of days when it turns bad changes,
you know. Jane just don't want me eating
something. I'm going to be sick. Oh, that's been there three days. This lamb can't
be that way. It can't be left over and where
you got to throw it away because it went bad. You know why? Because the sacrifice of Christ
never goes bad. None of his sacrifice was wasted. Everyone for whom he died is
saved. Christ didn't shed his blood
as, oh, well, you know, these people that, you know, my blood
would have worked for them, but they wouldn't accept me. So,
you know, that blood shed for them is wasted. No, sir. Everyone. for whom Christ died is completely
and utterly redeemed, because he is the successful Savior.
Not one drop of his blood was wasted. And I'm telling you,
that gives me a lot of confidence to trust him. Don't you like
trusting somebody who can't fail? That's who I want to trust. Verse
11, and thus say ye, eat it, with your loins girded, your
shoes on your feet, and your staff in your hand. Ye shall
eat it in haste, It's the Lord's Passover. And you see, I must
eat the lamb. I must eat it. Nobody else can
do it for me. I must do it. I must eat the lamb in faith. Now on this first Passover, you
know how you could tell the evidence somebody believed God? They ate
the lamb with their shoes on their feet, their staff in their
hand, they ate it in haste. I'm getting ready to leave this
place. Now you're a slave, you've been here for 400 years, you've
got absolutely no power, you've got no army, the Pharaoh said,
I will not let your people go. How do you know when you eat
this lamb, you're leaving here in the middle of the night? How
do you know that? God said so. That's why I got my staff in
my hand, my shoes on my feet, my loins girt, I'm ready to go. The scripture talks about eating
Christ. Remember the Lord said, whosoever eateth my flesh and
drinketh my blood, What he's talking about, there's faith
in Christ. Salvation is union with Christ. But now listen,
I must believe Christ for myself. You must believe Christ for yourself. Now, I haven't been preaching
grace and preaching that, you know, salvation's all a work
of God. And suddenly I'm making the work
and putting something on you. When I say you must believe Christ,
I'm not putting work on you. Because if you haven't figured
it out yet, let me tell you, you can't make yourself believe
on Christ. You cannot do it. You can't do it. I wish I could
tell you how much time of my life I wasted trying to make
myself believe on Christ. You cannot do it. I can't make
myself believe on Christ. Faith is the gift of God. Eric,
I can't make myself believe on Christ, but I sure can ask him
to give it to me. If faith is a gift of God, Wouldn't it be
a mighty good idea to ask Him to give it to you? It's a gift. Lord, would you give that gift
to me? That's the only way I'll believe Him. If I want to be
saved, I must believe Christ. Nobody else can do it for me. I tell you, if you are here this
evening and you know you don't know Christ, you know you don't
believe Him, you know you don't trust Him, you know you're not
saved. You know it. Tell you what I'd
do if I was you. I'd hear the gospel preached
as often as humanly possible. You know why I say that? Because
faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. And
that brings me to my last point. I must hear the gospel preached
over and over and over again. Verse 14, in this day shall be
unto you for a memorial And you should keep it a feast to the
Lord throughout your generations. You should keep it a feast by
an ordinance forever. Now, Christ the lamb doesn't
need to be sacrificed over and over and over again. One sacrifice
of Christ was enough to justify his people, put their sin away,
make them righteous. Christ doesn't need to be sacrificed
over and over and over again, but we sure do need to be reminded
of his sacrifice over and over and over again. We need to be
reminded of who he is over and over and over again. That's why
we keep preaching the gospel. That's why we keep saying the
same thing from a different text over and over and over and over
again. We need to be reminded. And believers, they have a commitment
to Christ. They have a commitment to the
gospel. They have a commitment to hearing it. They have a commitment
to support the gospel. They have a commitment to be
here. You know why? They have a commitment that's
born out of need. I need Christ. I need him. This is not just
a ceremony I'm going through now. I need him. I need to hear
of him over and over. I need to. And the Lord, in his
tenderness for his people, gave us this preaching of the gospel.
And he gave us this ordinance that we're about to observe for
this purpose. Why did he say do this with this
wine, this unleavened bread? Why did he say do this? In remembrance
of me. So I need to be reminded over
and over and over again. Now aren't you thankful for this?
This reminder, this simple reminder, the unleavened bread, pictures
his sinless body that was broken under the rod of his father's
justice for my sin. And this wine, nothing tastes
like wine, does it? A distinctive reminder of His
blood shed to put away my sin. To be reminded again, salvation
is complete in the blood of Christ and His sacrifice. And when I
take that bread and I take that wine, I'm taking it in faith,
saying He's all I need. He's all I want. Isn't that a
good reminder? I got a minute, let me tell you
this story. Heard it from your papa. Brother Marvin went to
Fairmont to be the pastor. Brother Scott Richardson had
been pastor there for, I don't know, years and years and years
and years, over 50 years. And Marvin became the pastor.
Scott and Marvin became such close, close, close friends.
Scott just supported him and just, oh, they were good friends.
And not too awful long before Brother Scott died, he came to
Marvin and he pulled out of his pocket pocket knife. And he gave
it to Marvin. He said, Marvin, he said, I want
you to have this. He said, I want you to have it
so you remember me. And Brother Marvin says, Brother Scott, I'll
never forget you. He said, well, I want you to
have this knife so you remember me. And Marvin said, well, thank
you. Marvin carries it in his pocket. And every time Glenda's
got a little thread sticking off, he'll get that knife out
and open it, get that thread in it to remember Scott. Marvin
gets a letter and he gets that knife out and opens up the envelope. He remembers brother Scott. The
Lord gave us this to remember his precious person, sacrificed
for us. Isn't that special? All right,
Wayne, if you may, we'll distribute the bread.