All right, let's open our Bibles
again to Exodus chapter 12. As I began to search for a text
to prepare a message for our New Year's Eve service, I had
in mind I was looking for a text that would give us a good message
to close out this year and give us a good message as a springboard
into the new year. Verses one and two of Exodus
chapter 12 came to my mind. The Lord spake unto Moses and
Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying, This month should be unto you
the beginning of months. It should be the first month
of the year to you. The Lord comes and speaks to
Moses and Aaron and tells them that the whole Jewish calendar
is getting ready to change. It's going to be turned upside
down because of the Passover. At this time, the Jews, their
new year would begin in the middle of our September. Now it's gonna,
everything's gonna be turned upside down. Now it's gonna begin
in the middle of our March. Now what is it about the Passover
that caused the Jews to change everything about the way they
kept time? That struck my mind. And we know the answer. The answer
is because of the Passover, how that Passover sacrifice The picture
is the sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ. When the Jews were
in bondage in Egypt, they adopted the Egyptian calendar. But now
they're going to be set free from that bondage. They're going
to leave that place. They're not going to be under
the dominion of Egypt anymore. They're going to be set free
by this picture of Christ and this sacrifice. And in Christ,
everything's going to be made new. You know, time changes when
Christ appears. Christ appears in His power,
time changes. There was a time when there was
no time. And human time, you know when
it began? When Christ appeared and said, let there be light.
Human time began. And man has been keeping track
of time and years, years we call B.C., before Christ. All those
years were kept, just numbering up, numbering up, numbering up.
And then suddenly, The angels said Christ is born. Christ was
born in Bethlehem. And time changed. Now we still
keep track of years, but now they're years A.D. Anno Domini,
the year of our Lord. The Lord come, the Lord has come,
and he changed the way we keep time. And we're gonna keep keeping
track of these time, these years, A.D., Anno Domini, until Christ
returns. And when he returns, time's gonna
change again. Then there'll be no more time.
There'll just be eternity. See, all of our times have to
do with Christ. Our life, our days, our times,
all begin when Christ appears. And the same thing is true of
our spiritual life. Our spiritual life and times
begin when Christ appears in power. Before he appears, we're
dead. But all things are made new when
Christ appears. This word here, beginning, this
month should be the beginning of months to you. It means, it
doesn't just mean the start. It means the head, the chief,
the captain. That's Christ. Christ is our
life. He's the head of our life. He's
the chief of our life. He's the glory of our life, is
Christ. Christ is the captain of our
salvation. He's the captain who ordains
all of our days. You wonder why? Whatever, I don't
know what happened in your life today. You want to know why it
happened? The exact way it happened, you want me to tell you? The
captain ordained it to happen just that way. He's the captain
of our lives. And this word beginning, it also
means first. First in place. First in rank. It means the highest part, the
most important part. Well, that's Christ. He's first
in place. He's first in rank of our lives. To the believer, Christ is our
King. It all centers around Him. Our
whole life revolves around Him. The highest part of our life
is Christ. Well, I guess that goes without
saying, Eric, that He is our life. So the highest part, He's
all of it. He's the crown jewel of our life. There can't be any life without
Christ. He's the beginning of it. He's
the first in rank of it. And that's why time changed at
this first Passover. The calendar got turned upside
down when Christ appeared. And I want us to end 2016 with the beginning of our message.
Christ. Christ our Savior. The message
that by God's grace has been preached here all year long.
And I want us to begin 2017 preaching the beginning of our message,
the beginning of our gospel, Christ our Savior. And if he
wills, it'll be preached all next year, too. I want to give
us a few ways here that the Lord Jesus Christ, our Savior, is
the chief to show us how he has the preeminence in all things.
Now this message applies to everyone. This message does not just apply
to the believer. It applies to everyone. everyone,
because everyone, without exception, needs Christ to be our lamb.
Look at verse three. Speak ye unto all the congregation
of Israel, saying in the tenth day of this month they shall
take to them every man of lamb, according to the house of their
fathers, a lamb for a 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. Now, everyone
in Egypt must have a lamb that night. You know, this didn't
just apply to families who had a firstborn. It didn't just apply
to the firstborn. It applied to everyone. What
if there was a couple? Say there was a newly married
couple. They've just been married a couple
months. They didn't have any children,
so they don't have a firstborn. They were both born second in
their families, but neither one of them is a firstborn. Do they
gotta have a lamb? Oh yeah, they've gotta have a
lamb. If the two of them couldn't eat
a whole lamb, and they probably couldn't, then they would go
to their neighbor's house next to them and they would eat the
lamb with their neighbors because everyone must have a lamb. We
have to have a lamb because God commanded it. This message is
to everyone. We all need a lamb. Everyone
here, needs Christ to be our Lamb, to be the Lamb sacrificed
for our sin. Because Christ, the Lamb of God,
is the only one who can take away our sin. When He appeared,
what did John the Baptist say? Behold, the Lamb of God which
taketh away the sin of the world. That's the only Lamb who can
take away sin. We must have Christ. He's the
beginning. He's the chief thing in our life.
He is so much the beginning, so much the chief thing that
Christ is the only thing that matters, really is. And I'll
show you how. Number one, Lord Jesus Christ
is the beginning. He's the chief thing because
he's the sinless sacrifice. 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. Now, the lamb
selected to be the sacrifice couldn't have any blemishes.
It had to be perfect. John Gill or somebody I read
said there are 50 or 60 different blemishes, you know, ways they
would check. There's a very detailed way you'd check to make sure
this lamb had no blemishes. It had to be perfectly healthy
because this lamb, not just any lamb, this lamb is a picture
of Christ who had no sin. There was no blemish. for sin,
of sin found in our Lord Jesus Christ. He had no original sin
of his own, because he was born of a virgin. He's the seed of
woman. He didn't come from the seed
of man. He wasn't conceived from the fallen sinful seed of Adam.
He's the seed of woman. He's born of a virgin. He had
no original sin. And he didn't have any sin of
his own. Scripture says he did no sin. He thought no sin. He desired no sin. There was
no guile in his mouth. This man is the perfect man. And that's what makes Christ
the perfect sacrifice. The sinless sacrifice. He's able
to pay the sin debt of his people because he has none of his own.
Now there's the beginning. There's something new. There's
something chief. It's never been seen before.
The perfect man. And you know, everybody knew
it. And they could try to deny it if they want, but everybody
knew this is a perfect man. The father himself spoke from
heaven and said, this is my beloved son in whom I'm well pleased.
He's holy. The only way the father could
be pleased with him is if he had no sin. The angel knew it,
that angel who announced his conception. He didn't even know
what to call that baby. He said, that holy thing, Mary
in your womb. All I can tell you is he's holy.
He has no sin. Pilate knew it, didn't he? Pilate
said, he kept saying over and over, I find no fault in him
because there wasn't any. The devils knew it. The devils
called him the holy one of God. And this is so amazing to me.
Man by nature doesn't know what the devils know. The devils know
this is the Holy One of God, and man doesn't, not unless he
reveals himself to us. That shows you how fallen and
dead in sin we are. We don't know what the devils
know. This lamb is a perfect lamb. Then the lamb that they
selected also had to be a lamb of the first year. It had to
be a lamb in the prime of its life. The father couldn't go
out and look at his flock there and say, Take that old lamb,
he's probably going to die before too long anyway. He don't have
his wools thin. He's probably, you know, we can't
sell him or anything. He's no count. I'll use him for
the sacrifice. Can't do that. It's got to be
a lamb in the prime of life. This lamb must be a valuable
lamb. It's going to have to cost you. Because this lamb is a picture
of the Lord Jesus Christ whose value cannot be calculated. God the Father sent the sacrifice
for sin. He didn't send something that
was no count, did he? No, it cost him. It cost him his own
beloved son. The Lord Jesus Christ came as
a man and he died in the prime of his physical life. At the
strength of his human life, that's when he died. So that we'd know. He didn't die of any natural
causes, did he? No, the Father's the one who
put him to death as a sacrifice for sin. to pay the sin debt
of his people. I'm going to show you something
I've never seen before. Some of y'all may have seen this
and somehow I've missed it. He says here, you should take
the take it out from the sheep or from the goats. And somehow
this is what I had in my mind, that there's a sheep out there,
there's a lamb, and if there's a bunch of goats around, you
go take that sheep. But that's not what that means. It means
for this Passover sacrifice that you could offer a sheep or a
goat. That's what that means. Now,
when we think of the Passover lamb, we think of a lamb, don't
we? Because the lamb is a picture of Christ, the lamb of God. And
a lamb's a good picture of Christ. A lamb pictures the innocence,
the purity, the gentleness of Christ. A lamb's good for clothing. Wool clothing's the best. Well,
that's Christ. He's good for clothing. His righteousness
is the perfect garment. The lamb's good for food. That's
Christ. He's the bread of life. If you
eat Him, you have eternal life. But they could also take their
sacrifice from the goats. Now, how is a smelly, stubborn
goat a picture of Christ? Well, what was the goat used
for? The goat is used for the sin
of them. So this is the picture. This is what this is teaching
us. Christ is both the lamb and the goat. Christ is the holy,
spotless sacrifice of the lamb. And He's the goat who is the
sin of them. He was made sin for His people. That's how He
put their sin away. He made the sin of His people
to be His sin. He took their sin in His body
on the tree and made himself the sin offering. And by his
sacrifice, by the sacrifice of our sin offering, Christ forever
put the sin of his people away. He's the sin offering. Christ
is the chief thing. He's the beginning. He's the
sinless sacrifice. Second, the Lord Jesus Christ
is the beginning. He's the chief thing because
he died as a sacrifice for sin, verse six. 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 was selected. The father thought this is a
lamb without spot or blemish, but they pinned it up and they
watched it for 14 days to make sure it didn't have any hidden
disease or imperfection. And then at the specified time,
the time of the evening sacrifice, that lamb was put to death. You
see, the perfect lamb could not save the life of the firstborn
unless the lamb died. The lamb had to die. That's the
Lord Jesus Christ. He was the perfect man. He was born without sin. He didn't
have any of Adam's original sin, but then he had to grow to full
maturity and he was watched the entire time to see, does he have
a blemish in him? Does he have an imperfection?
They washed him close, didn't they? But he was perfect. Everybody
knew it. Then why did he die? It's impossible
for someone to die who never sinned. Isn't that right? Here's
why Christ died. He died as a sacrifice for the
sin of his people. He was made sin for his people.
The only way the Father could have killed him is if he was
made sin. The Holy Father could have never
done something so unjust as to kill an innocent man. He didn't
do that. No, the Father made Him sin for
His people and in justice He slew, crucified Him as a sacrifice
for the sin of His people. Now while we love and admire
the perfect life of our Lord Jesus Christ, and we love it
because His righteousness is our righteousness, His obedience
is our obedience, The only obedience whatever I have. But the perfect
life of Christ alone by itself can't save anybody. If sinners
are going to be saved, Christ must die. For without the shedding
of blood is no remission. And it was the perfect blood
that Christ shed in his death that paid the sin debt of his
people. Christ died to fulfill this picture of the Passover
lamb. Everybody knows Christ cried, it's finished. And he
hung his head and gave up the ghost. Everybody knows that.
You know, the hour, the time of day, he said it is finished.
At the very time of the evening sacrifice, when everybody who
was gathered together to for the Passover, when they were
killing their Passover lamb in that hour, Christ cried, it's
finished. And there have been no more Passover
sins. because Christ, our Passover, is sacrificed for us. People
might have gone through some religious ceremony, but there
was never another Passover. That was the last one, because
Christ, our Passover, is sacrificed for us. You know, just last week,
we were looking how those angels sang joy to the world. Well,
there's no joy to the world unless that baby grows to a full-grown
man and then dies as a sacrifice for sin. And Christ did die. He died as a sacrifice for sin
so that he is the beginning, the chief thing of our joy. There's
joy to the world because Christ died. Thirdly, the Lord Jesus
Christ is the beginning. He's the chief thing because
when his blood is applied, there's life. Look at verse seven. 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." Now the sacrifice had to be killed. At the time of
the evening sacrifice, there was a specific time they were
to kill that animal. Catch its blood in a basin. The
blood must be shed. And then the father had to take
that blood and go apply it to the door post. You see the perfect
lamb alone? It was not enough to save the
life of the firstborn, was it? Even the death of the lamb alone
was not enough to save the life of that firstborn. Suppose the
father selected a lamb. He built him a pen. He watched
that lamb for 14 days to make sure that lamb was spotless. And it was. Three o'clock in
the afternoon, the time of the evening sacrifice, he took that
lamb He slit its throat. He killed it. He caught its blood
in a basin. And then he walked into his house
and gave that lamb to his wife for her to roast it on the fire,
however they did that, and shut the door and sat down and waited
to eat. You know what would have happened? This firstborn would
have died. He couldn't say, well, now I've
done everything else, and this kiss up and putting it on my
door, that's not very good curb appeal. That can't be very important. He did not apply that blood.
His firstborn was going to die. The blood must be applied. Here's the picture of Christ.
Lord Jesus must be the perfect man. He must be without sin. But his perfect life alone couldn't
save anybody, could it? Then our Lord Jesus must be crucified. I say this very carefully, but
this is true. Even the death of Christ alone
not save anybody. The blood must be applied. If God's elect are going to be
saved, the Holy Spirit must come and He must apply the blood to
the hearts of His people. And when He applies the blood,
there's life in the blood. The blood must be applied. Christ is the chief. He's the
beginning. Life begins when His blood's
applied. Lord Jesus Christ is the beginning.
He's the chief thing. He must be eaten in faith. There's
no salvation without faith. Verse eight. And they shall eat
the flesh, and that night roast with fire, and unleavened bread,
and with bitter herbs they shall eat it. Now the lamb had to be
eaten in faith. Faith in Christ. Now you might
wonder, Frank, where'd you get that from that verse? Well, I'll
show you. They had to eat the lamb roast
with fire. Now when you think, when I just
said that, a lamb roast with fire, every person here thought
of a lamb on a horizontal spit over a fire, turning it to roast
it. That's, every person here thought
that. But that's not how they roasted a lamb. What they did
is they would put that spit, it would always be a wooden spit,
clear through the animal, and they'd roast it over the fire,
not horizontally. but vertically over the fire.
And sometimes that animal might tend to slide off the stick,
right? So you know what they do? They tie a cross beam on
that spit and they tie the animal's legs onto it to keep it from
sliding off the stick into the fire. Even the way they roast
that lamb is a picture of Christ crucified at Calvary. Christ our Passover
Lamb, how He suffered. He suffered for the sin of His
people. You believe Him. He suffered untold agony for
Ralph Brown. You think of that. As He suffered,
He suffered the wrath, fiery burning wrath of His Father against
sin. And He was roast with that fire. He roasted in that fire, not
until he was burned up. He was roasting that fire until
the fire went out. The fire went out because the
sin that fueled God's wrath was gone because of the sacrifice
of Christ. Then and only then did the fire
go out. Even the way they roasted that lamb is a picture of Christ
our Savior, how he put our sin away. Then when they ate the
lamb, They ate the lamb with unleavened bread. Now, you know,
everybody here knows leaven in scripture is a picture of sin.
They ate that lamb with this unleavened bread, picturing Christ
the sinless sacrifice. And he's the one who makes his
people holy. Christ suffered and he died because
he was made sin for his people. And in turn, he makes his people
the righteousness of God in him. That's how we're made holy. And
they would eat the lamb with bitter herbs. And those herbs
are a picture of repentance. The bitter repentance of sin.
They ate that lamb with bitter herbs in faith. A picture of
turning to Christ from our sin. And they ate that lamb in faith.
Believing God's gonna do what he said he'd do. Look at verse
11. And thus shall ye eat it, with
your loins girded, your shoes on your feet, and your staff
in your hand. You shall eat it in haste. It's
the Lord's Passover. They ate, ready to go. I would
think it'd be easier to eat lamb if you could use two hands. You
don't have a knife and a fork. They ate with a staff in their
hand. At a moment's notice, they're going to leave this place. God's
going to do what He says. They're leaving tonight because
of this sacrifice. If you and I will be saved, we
must do the exact same thing. We must eat Christ in faith. We must have union with Christ.
You see, it's not good enough for us to admire Christ the Lamb. It's not good enough to admire
that He's holy, that He's righteous, that He's an example. It's not
good enough to say what would Jesus do and try to follow His
example. Not good enough. It's not good enough to know
how and why Christ was crucified. Not good enough. We must eat
Christ by faith. We must have union with Christ. I'm not talking about being a
cannibal. When we talk about eating Christ, what that simply
means is we're describing union with Christ by eating. Because
that is an illustration everybody understands. When we eat something,
we're going to have a time of fellowship. We'll eat the bread
of the Lord's table. Then we'll have a time of fellowship.
We'll eat something. And when we eat those things,
They become ours. Somebody, y'all made something,
put it out there on the table. Here in a little bit, I'm going
to eat it and it's not yours, it's mine. I ate it. It becomes
part of all the cells of my body. That's what it is to eat Christ.
It's to have union with Him so that you are what He is. Look
at John chapter 6. This is something our Lord told
us very plainly. And it just utterly baffled us. Pharisees and the religious folks,
but he's not talking about being a cannibal. He's talking about
union with Christ. Receiving Him by faith. John
6 verse 47. Our Lord says, Verily, verily,
I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life.
I am that bread of life. Your fathers did eat man in the
wilderness and they're dead. Just going through a religious
ceremony is not going to help you any. There's nothing but
death there. This is the bread which cometh
down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof and not die.
I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If any man
eat of this bread, he shall live forever. And the bread that I
will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the
world. The Jews therefore strove among themselves, saying, How
can this man give us his flesh to eat? Then Jesus said unto
them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh
of the Son of Man, and drink his blood, you have no life in
you. Unless you have union with Christ,
you have no life. Whoso eateth my flesh and drinketh
my blood hath eternal life. And I'll raise him up at the
last day. For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink
indeed. He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood dwelleth
in me, and I in him. As the living Father has sent
me, and I live by the Father, so he that eateth me even he
shall live by me. This is that bread which came
down from heaven. Not as your fathers did eat man and are dead.
He that eateth this bread shall live forever. You see, plainly,
he's talking about union with Christ. If we would be saved,
we must be joined to Christ by faith. And when we eat Christ,
listen to this very carefully, we must eat and believe and receive
the 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. Now when I say we must believe
Christ, we must believe Christ as he is, not as we think he
is, not as we think he should be, but as He is, as He's revealed
in His Word. We can eat Christ raw. Now what is that raw? It's half-baked. You can't eat and believe there's
no salvation in a half-baked gospel. Well, what's a half-baked
gospel? A half-baked gospel, looking
to a babe in a manger. That baby can't save the evening.
That's a half-baked gospel. A half-baked gospel is just looking
to Christ as an example of what you ought to do and how you ought
to live. I say this often. I wish we could get this through
our head. We know how to live. You know not to lie and steal
and cheat. That's not the problem. We don't need an example. We
need a Savior. A half-baked gospel doesn't declare
a Savior. If we would be saved, we must
believe and receive. the crucified Christ, who was
fully roasted with the fire of God's wrath against sin, because
that's the only way our sin can be put away. You can't eat him
of him raw, and you can't eat him sautéed all with water. Brethren,
a watered-down gospel will not save anybody. Now, people might
like it better, people might make fun of you less, but a watered-down
gospel is not going to save anybody. Salvation cannot come from a
watered down Christ. Can't mix grace and purpose.
It's 100% Christ and anything less is watered down and can't
save a sinner. If we would be saved, we must
believe the whole Christ. The head with the legs and the
pertinence thereof, the whole body of the lamb was to be roasted.
That's how we believe Christ, the whole Christ. in all of his
offices, prophet, priest, and king. We believe him. We bow to him as the sovereign.
We bow to him as our righteousness. We receive him as our sanctification.
He doesn't save us and we gotta keep our own selves holy. No,
he's our righteousness and he's our sanctification. Christ is
all of our salvation. He's key. He is key. If Christ, he cannot be your
savior, but not your king. No, sir. And I'll tell you what
that means. I mean, probably everybody would
agree with that. But this is what that means.
You can't have a savior that you decide to accept or reject.
You can accept him or you can reject him. He ain't a savior.
Get away from him. Christ is our savior. I promise
you this. He's going to be your king first.
So that you bow to him and you beg him for mercy, and you worship
him whether he saves you or not. This is the point we've got to
come to. I sure would like Christ to save me, but if he's the king,
he doesn't have to. If he saves me, it'll be by his
will, by his purpose, by his mercy, not because I just hurfed
it. We must believe the whole Christ, Not just His love, but
His justice. Whatever He does with me is right. God is merciful to whom He will
be merciful, and whom He will, He hardens. He passes them by.
If that's not the Christ that you trust to be your Savior,
you're not saved. That's all there is to it. We
must eat the whole Christ. Now I tell you, you come eat. Come eat. On the night of the
Passover, everybody had as much to eat as they wanted, didn't
they? Nobody went hungry. You counted
up everybody's appetite to make your count for the lamb. Everybody
had all they wanted. The lamb was enough for every
person in the house. Now you come to Christ and you
eat all you want. Christ is enough for you. If
you need Christ to be your whole Savior, He's in the covenant. Then fifthly, Lord Jesus Christ
is the beginning. He's the chief thing, because
nothing of him is wasted. Verse 10, 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. Now why did the
Lord tell them that? Whatever leftovers you had, burn
with fire? Because you gotta remember, this
lamb is a picture of Christ. And Christ did not die in vain. Christ didn't die offering salvation
to anybody. He didn't die hoping maybe somebody
would feel sorry for him and accept him as their savior. No.
He didn't die offering salvation to anybody. Christ died for his
people. And the angel said at his birth,
he's come to save his people from their sins. In his death,
that's exactly what he did. He saved them all. Not one drop
of the blood of his sacrifice is wasted. All of his people
are saved. When the Israelites left Egypt
that day, there was nothing in the house left over for the Egyptians'
deed who weren't in the house the night before. Nothing's wasted. You see, salvation is not an
offer. Christ did not die to offer his blood to you and me.
That's the, we see that in the blood of the Passover lamb. The
father went and he applied it to the doorpost, didn't he? And
he went in and shut the door. The firstborn, maybe they told
their firstborn what the Lord's gonna pass through. He's gonna
kill every firstborn. If I, I'm the firstborn in my
family, that would have got my attention. Was there hope I might
live? Well, yes, that's what this lamb's
a picture of. Father told him, he preached
the gospel to his son, told him how that lamb was perfect, how
he killed it on the time of the evening sacrifice. So he caught
its blood, I put the blood on the door, and the mother there,
she was roasting that lamb. That lamb died as your substitute. He died so you can live, now
you eat him. The firstborn couldn't see the
blood, could they? The blood wasn't offered to the firstborn.
to see if the firstborn might accept the lamb or not. The blood's
on the outside of the house for God to see. So that when God
passes by, when I see the blood, I'll pass it over to you. That
firstborn, his parents couldn't see the blood. That's all right. The blood wasn't offered to them.
They're not the offended party. God is. The blood was offered
to God upon the altar to pay for the sin of his elect. All
that mattered was God saw the blood. Because that's who the
blood was offered to. So if Christ died for you, you
mark this down. You shall be saved. His blood
put your sin away. And then lastly, the Lord Jesus
Christ is the beginning. He's the chief thing. He died as a substitute for a
specific people. 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 will pass over you and the
plague shall not be upon you to destroy you when I smite the
land of Egypt. Now, you know, there was death
in every home in Egypt that night. Either the firstborn died or
the substitute died. One way or another, there's death
in every home in Egypt. And what that teaches us is that
God will punish every sin without exception. God will punish every
sin with eternal death. Either we'll suffer it in eternity
in hell, or will suffer it in the person of Christ our substitute.
But one way or another, justice is going to be satisfied for
every sin. Now, when God passed through
the land that night, there was blood on that side of the door.
Why would God pass over that house? Why would he not stop
and kill the firstborn in that house? Because the blood applied
to the door was enough. It was enough to satisfy God's
holy justice. The blood said, the lamb died
as a substitute for the firstborn. That is the beginning of life. That is the chief thing of life. Why is it that when the Holy
Spirit applies the blood to our hearts, why is it God will pass
over us, not destroy us and accept us? Because the blood of Christ
is enough. It's enough to satisfy God's
holy justice against our sin. The blood applied says Christ
died. died for you as your substitute. That's the beginning of life.
That's the chief thing. I can tell you, it thrills my
soul to read this gospel, to read how Christ died for sinners.
That's good news. But what I cannot get over is
this. This is the beginning. He died
as my substitute. That's the beginning. That's
the glory of it. That's the chief thing of this
year. Lord cares, that's gonna be the chief thing of next year
too. Now look at verse 14. And this day should 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 that says you keep the Passover
forever, but we don't observe the Passover anymore, do we?
I wouldn't have the first idea how to put a lamb on a spit and
roast it. I wouldn't, I do all that. But yet we do observe the
Passover in this way, by what we're getting ready to do right
now. By the Lord's table. When we observe the Lord's table,
we're remembering how Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed
for us. We take the bread. and the wine.
We eat it and we drink it. What we're saying is Christ died
as my substitute. Christ died to put my sin away. All of my hope of salvation and
eternal life is in Him. When Christ died at Calvary,
time changed it. We don't observe the Passover
anymore, but we do remember Christ. He's the beginning. He's the
chief thing. I look forward to this time.
I look forward to this time we can observe the Lord's table
and remember Him. And I pray we end this year and
we begin next year and we go through as many years as God
gives us on this earth remembering Him and looking to Christ our
sacrifice. Because you know what we're going
to do in eternity? All of our focus is going to
be on Christ, the Lamb as it had been slain. In glory, we're
going to do perfectly what we're getting ready to do right now.
We're going to look to Christ our sacrifice. Amen.