Mark's Gospel, chapter 14 and
verse 12. And the first day of unleavened
bread, when they killed the Passover, his disciples said unto him,
Where wilt thou that we go and prepare that thou mayest eat
the Passover? And he sendeth forth two of his
disciples, and saith unto them, Go ye into the city, and there
shall meet you a man bearing a picture of water. Follow him. And wheresoever he shall go in,
say ye to the good man of the house, The master saith, Where
is the guest chamber, where I shall eat the Passover with my disciples? and he will show you a large
upper room, furnished and prepared, there make ready for us.' And
his disciples went forth and came into the city, and found
as he had said unto them, and they made ready the Passover.
And in the evening he cometh with the twelve. And as they
sat and did eat, Jesus said, Verily I say unto you, one of
you which eateth with me shall betray me. And they began to
be sorrowful and said unto him one by one, Is it I? And another
said, Is it I? And he answered and said unto
them, It is one of the twelve that dippeth with me in the dish. The son of man indeed goeth as
it is written of him, but woe to that man by whom the son of
man is betrayed. Good were it for that man if
he had never been born. Psalm words. May the Lord bless
to us this reading from his word. From my reading, of the Gospels,
it seems to me that the Lord Jesus Christ attended four Passover
feasts in Jerusalem, including this one, which he is about to
eat with his disciples. And since the Lord's ministry
extended for about three and a half years, it means that he
did not miss an opportunity to be at a feast. And I think that
right here in the introduction, I want to make a couple of little
applications because I think it's interesting that we see
these examples in the life of the Lord. If possible, we should
try to be at each service where the gospel is preached. We should
endeavour not to miss an occasion to be with the Lord's family
when communion is shared. The Lord made sure that he was
at the Passover feasts and that is a picture for us. It was certainly
a divine ordinance from the Old Testament times that every Jewish
male had to attend the Passover. And nowadays under the gospel,
attendance at the Lord's table is not an obligation. But we should treasure and cherish
these opportunities to hear the gospel, to share together in
fellowship, to be at the Lord's table where the Lord is remembered
in his death, in his crucifixion, in his sacrifice. These are family
privileges and they are an opportunity for us to meet with the Lord
Jesus Christ and an opportunity for us to fellowship with the
people of Christ. And it may be that we are separated
by distance, but we know of one another's presence. We have become
familiar with one another, and we share a unity, we share a
bond, we share in these gospel truths that we are identifying
with, that we are supporting, that we are upholding, that we
are maintaining. And we are bound together in
this great labor, this great work of the gospel. It is a spiritual
priority that we should hear the gospel and it is a blessing
to be missed by a child of God only in extenuating circumstances. Such practices of the Lord are
not peculiar just to him or isolated to him and his time and in his
place, but they're personal for us to look at and read about
and think about and meditate upon and draw applications for
in our own souls and in our own life's experience. They're exemplary
for us all. Sure, our Saviour taught his
disciples and us by the things that he said, and also the things
that he did, and by the examples that he gave. His disciples,
I am absolutely certain, realised the importance the Lord laid
upon being where God promised to meet His people, at the temple
in Jerusalem at the Passover feast. The Lord knew that was
where God had ordained and He would be there. And the disciples
watched the Lord take these obligations seriously. And others will observe
that in the Lord's people too. By such an example, we teach
our children our priorities in life. We show those around about
us that, no, I'm sorry, I can't be there at that time. That's
when we have church. That's when I worship the Lord.
That's when I go to hear the gospel. I know it's not always
possible to be at a service, and if you can't, you can't.
But let us manage our lives around being under the sound of the
gospel. Let us prioritise the worship
of God. What could be more important? Be sure of this, if we are not
careful to jealously guard such times as these, The devil will
make very sure that our occasions of being with the Lord's people
will be few and far between. And here's just another strand
to this thought. Not only did the Lord conscientiously
attend all of the Passover feasts during his ministry, he purposefully
made preparations to do so. Think about that for a moment.
He made sure that all was in order for the feast to be conducted
with due regard to all that was needful. There were practical things to
be done and the Lord made sure that they were done. And there's
an application here for us also, I think. The old men, when they're
writing their commentaries and they're writing their treatises
and their studies in the scriptures, they often use the word improvement. or improvements and they say
that there's an improvement here. Not that they're improving upon
the scripture but what they're saying is that we can take what
we read here and we can better ourselves, we can improve in
the way in which we think, in the way in which we act, in the
way in which we deal because of the applications because of
taking ownership of these things practically in our own lives.
And this is what the Lord's people ought always to have an ear to
do, to be hearers and doers of the Word of God. So there's something,
an improvement here for us also. Let us, as did the Lord, prepare
ourselves for worship. Let us prepare our hearts for
worship. Let us ask the Lord to grant
us his presence. Do we dare to rush thoughtlessly
into the Lord's presence? Is it a last minute thing? Is
it, I'll get there if I can? Let's take this task seriously. This is the blessed privilege
of access to God's table fitly spread. And I'm not just talking
about the bread and the wine. I'm talking about the table that
is spread in the presence of our enemies. If you were being
invited to a formal dinner, you might get an invitation sent
to you, and the invitation could say something like, 7.30 for
eight o'clock. Now, I hope you know what that
means. It means that you have to allow
half an hour for everyone to arrive and be seated and be settled
before the meal. Don't come running in at 5 to
8 expecting to sit down at the table at 8 o'clock. It's 7.30
for 8 o'clock. And if we have a few extra minutes
to sit quietly before the service, let us take and employ and use
those minutes to ask for help for the preacher and to ask for
hearing ears for us. The Lord made preparation and
we should too. And I want to mention a third
wee point, and then I've got another couple of things that
I want to say to you by way of points in this service. But just
another little aside, as it were. I called your attention yesterday
in the introduction to a little phrase I used, the Lord's prescience
and providence. That's kind of complicated language.
I'm sorry if it sort of stumbled anybody, but it simply has to
do with this. What the Lord provided and what
the Lord knew in this little incident is really quite amazing. The arrangements for the upper
room speak to us of the glory and indeed the divinity of the
Lord Jesus Christ. Miracles can be big or they can
be little. Little miracles are good miracles
as well. How do we explain the Lord's
knowledge of the circumstances by which this upper room was
set aside, by which it was made available to him and to his disciples? Time. and place and people and
events all lay open to the Lord's view. And he who ordains all
things and arranges all things, he knows the who and the what
and the where and the when and the why and the how of every
event and every purpose. In a busy pre-feast city, a few
hours before the principal event of this Jewish religious calendar,
a large upper room, furnished and prepared, lay empty and available
for the Lord Jesus Christ, such as his prescience and his
providence. This probably isn't in the list
of Jesus' miracles, but perhaps it should be. Of course, we don't
have the wisdom that the Lord had, but isn't not a wonderful
thing that we can commit the moments of our day and the years
of our lives into the care of one who does? and John, for it was these two
who went to prepare the upper room. Peter and John, Luke tells
us that. Peter and John might well have
been anxious as they hurried into Jerusalem, looking for a
man with a container on his head in that heaving city full of
people. Or maybe they just thought, the
Lord's got this under control. I've got three points that I
want to make today in the remainder of the time that's at my disposal.
The first one is, I want to think about Christ, our Passover, who
is sacrificed for us. I want to think about the disciples'
self-doubt and self-examination at the Feast of the Passover. and I want to think about divine
sovereignty and human responsibility. So those are my three headings.
We'll move through them quickly, but I think that there's something
interesting to be gleaned in considering each of these three
points. And the first one then is Christ
our Passover is sacrificed for us. This first heading is actually
quote from First Corinthians chapter five and verse seven,
where the Apostle Paul tells the church at Corinth, Christ
our Passover is sacrificed for us. And it's especially remarkable,
I think, that Paul should say that because the Corinthians
were a Gentile church. Passover, was a uniquely Jewish
feast and memorial. That's not to say that Jews didn't
travel from many different parts of the world at that time in
order to have the Passover feast, and undoubtedly it would be known
as being a significant event in the calendar. But these Corinthians were not
Jews. The purpose, of course, was not
to encourage believers to celebrate Passover, but to explain to the
Gentile believer, the Gentile mind, that Old Testament believers
and for Old Testament believers, this Passover ceremony gave light
gave wisdom, gave insight about God's coming Messiah. And that New Testament believers,
that's the Corinthians, to whom Paul wrote, and you and I, New
Testament believers can continue to draw lessons from the type,
the picture, to more fully understand the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. in the salvation and deliverance
of his people, because we are the true Israel of faith. These People, these Corinthians
who heard these words from Paul, were being directed to think
about the way in which the Lord Jesus Christ's work availed for
them. And it drew upon that Old Testament
picture of the Passover, which is nice because we are coming,
these things are coming together in our studies with our plagues
in Egypt and what is happening here in Mark. But let me give
you some examples in which, in the way in which that picture
of the Passover relates to the Lord Jesus Christ. When a Jewish man, we talked
yesterday about Peter and John taking the lamb to the temple
to have it killed and its fat and blood placed on the altar.
When a Jewish man took a lamb to the altar to be sacrificed
to God, He knew that the lamb was dying in place of another. He knew that the lamb was dying
in the place of another. And at Passover, when these lambs
were slain in Jerusalem, and then their meat was cooked and
the feast took place, in the homes of the children of Israel
in Egypt was the memory, there was the recollection of the fact
that the eldest son lived because the lamb had died and because
the blood of the lamb had been shed and painted on the doorposts
and the lintel of the door. So that when the death angel
passed, and this great, this final, this plague that culminated
in all of the plagues, when that death angel passed over, the
child in that household lived because the lamb had died. Now that was history, that was
clear from the teachings, the doctrines, the revelation of
God, the writings of Moses, and as God established this Passover
feast, the believing Jew, the worshipping Jew understood the
significance of the death of that lamb on behalf of another. So far so good. But that was
then. Why were the lambs still being
slain all these years later? Who was the one that was saved
now? What was the life that was saved
now when Peter and John took the lamb to the temple for this
Passover feast? Was it unnecessary that the lamb
was actually killed? Because there wasn't a life saved,
it was a picture, it was a memorial. Why was there still the lamb
being slain? We know that the blood of an
animal can never redeem and atone for the sin of a soul. But this ongoing sacrifice was
a picture that pointed to God's lamb, God's own lamb, Jesus Christ,
who alone can cleanse from sin. Hebrews chapter 10 verse 4 says,
for it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats,
we could add in sheep there, but it's the bulls and goats
that are quoted in this verse in Hebrews, should take away
sin, not the death of an animal. But every sacrifice and every
Passover feast that recollected and remembered that original
Passover and the deliverance of the children of Israel out
of servitude pointed to the Lord Jesus Christ. And here's another
aspect of the Passover which saw Christ fulfilling it. It
was not any blood, but it was the blood of a perfect lamb that
must be used. And thus the lamb, the Passover
lamb, was set aside four days before its slaying, and it was
examined to ensure that it was without spot and without blemish. That typified the fact that it
was pure, that it was perfect, that it was worthy to be slain. You see, God will not accept
sick animals. We learn about that in Malachi.
God requires perfection. But that speaks to the perfection
of Christ as the worthy sacrifice for his people. There was no
other good enough to pay the price of sin. He only could unlock
the door of heaven and let us in. For this reason, the redemption
of God's people could be accomplished only by the offering of a perfect
sacrifice. And the Lord Jesus Christ is
that perfect sacrifice. The Lord is our Passover. And one more example, just to
round this off. The Passover lamb must be roasted
before it was consumed. and it had to be roasted in a
fire whole. No bone shall be broken and it
must be consumed with bitter herbs. And so the Lord Jesus
Christ, in his death, was bruised and pierced and plucked and racked
but not a bone of his body was broken. And this speaks of Christ's
life, not being taken away by men, but being laid down voluntarily
by himself. It shows the unbroken strength
of Christ under the weight of our sin. the curse of the law,
the wrath of God, and even the conflict with Satan. Not a bone
of his body was broken. He withheld. He bore it all. And also at Christ's resurrection
from the dead, which was just a few days from now, it was God's
will that no bone should be broken. The pierced hands and feet and
side were still open and visible. Remember what Thomas said, but
not a bone was broken. And none of the bones of the
natural body of Christ were to be broken. We can spiritualize that. No
member of Christ in a spiritual sense, we who are bone of his
bone and flesh of his flesh, no member of the body of Christ
shall ever be broken off or cast away from his body. The elect
are everlastingly united to their head. And the bitter herbs, Our Lord
Jesus Christ drank the bitter cup of God's judgment against
our sin and thereby propitiated God's wrath forever. He drained
that cup and he drank it to the dregs. As the Old Testament believers
meditated upon the Passover feast and the Passover lamb, Views
of Christ's accomplishments and attributes would emerge under
Holy Spirit guidance. And as New Testament believers
everywhere reflect upon Christ's sacrifice, we see the perfections
of His work fulfilled in the divine types. Because the Saviour
died, God's children shall live forevermore. dwelling in liberty,
delivered from bondage of sin and guilt, freed from servitude
to the law. So Christ is our Passover. And as the Lord was celebrating
the Passover with his disciples, so we remember these delightful
pictures of the Lord Jesus Christ that are revealed therein. Here's the second thing that
I want to draw your attention to. And that is, as the Lord
was finishing the meal with his disciples, he told them that
one of them would betray him. And then we see something very
interesting. We see all the disciples exhibiting
and expressing this self-doubt and self-examination. In verse
19 of chapter 14, it says this. And they, that's the disciples,
upon hearing the Lord say that one of them would betray him,
they began to be sorrowful and to say unto him one by another,
is it I? And another said, is it I? And I want to mention another
striking matter from the passage here in this context. Almost
immediately, the disciples began to inquire as to whether they
were the one that should betray the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, let's
just pause for a moment and think about that. Is that not strange? Is it not strange that each of
them should have this overwhelming sense of anxiety that the one
to deceive the Lord Jesus Christ might be me? Me. Is it I? Sorrow filled their hearts at
such a prospect. We're told that. That was the
very first thing. They began to be sorrowful. Some of the other gospel writers
speak about greatly sorrowing. They began to be extremely sorrowful. And yet, in that overwhelming
sorrow and grief about the fact that they're about to lose their
friend, still that residual thought remains, and is it going to be
me that does it? They were committed to Christ.
They had not only left all to follow Christ, they'd been following
him for three and a half years. but they'd learned to love him
in that time and to worship him as God. They would not have dreamt
to have done such a thing, far less make any concrete moves
towards doing it, as Judas had done. And yet here they were,
doubting their own motives, searching their own hearts, appealing to
the Lord for consolation and confirmation that this heinous
sin was not of their doing. And I think that that response
to the Lord's words is, in truth, the personal experience of all
the Lord's people. who learn to know the deceit
of their own heart and the weakness of their own resolve under temptation. Because except the Lord hold
us up, and except the Holy Spirit give us strength, we have learned
that we are all capable of doing the most despicable things. even
to the denial and betrayal of the Lord Jesus Christ. The old adage is true, there
but for the grace of God go I. It's said that that was spoken
about martyrs going to the flames of their pyres, their martyrdom. There but for the grace of God
go I. But it is equally true when we consider the fact that
it is only the grace of God that holds us back from committing
the most heinous sins. And it's a reminder to us all
that the sinful heart is deceitful above all things. Who can know
it? Peter was adamant that he would
not deny his Lord even to the laying down of his life. but he learned to his shame that
his manly bravado melted before the questions of a little servant
girl. But still the question remains,
why did Christ's words create such a similar response in all
the disciples? And I wonder if perhaps the answer
lies in the words of the Apostle Paul when he's writing to the
Corinthians and he's telling them about the Lord's Supper,
the service of remembrance that we sometimes call breaking of
bread. And I wonder if there's a connection
here. We know that the Apostle Paul
said, let a man examine himself and then let him eat. Now while
those words that Paul uses to the Corinthians are not part
of the Lord's own language, and we're going to be thinking about
this a little more next week because that's when the Lord
institutes his supper. in the upper room, an extremely
important event which came hard on the back of the Passover feast. The Lord didn't use those words.
Those words are not recounted in any of the gospel writers'
accounts of the institution of this service, this memorial feast. But Paul used them. And he used
the term, examine ourself. Here we see that as the Lord
instituted this supper in the coming minutes following his
statement about a betrayer amongst them, the attitude of the disciples
in that moment was certainly one of self-examination. As they received the bread and
the wine from the Saviour's hand, they were thinking, is it me? Is it me? And the lesson surely is this,
that believers know that they are sinners, and this knowledge
teaches us our need of a saviour, so that this becomes a blessed
self-examination. that we look to ourselves and
see our need and we look away to Christ and see his provision. That is the heart of our remembrance
service. And it is one of the greatest
mistakes in Christian circles today that men and women are
taught to examine themselves to see if they are good enough
to take the bread and the wine. When in fact we should be examining
ourselves to see if we are bad enough to take the bread and
the wine. The Lord's Supper is only for
those who need a saviour and see in Christ's death the full,
free, successful salvation that we desperately require. Self-examination does not hinder
or discourage anyone from partaking in the Lord's Supper. It should
encourage us to realise that we have a privilege and a right
to go to Jesus for cleansing and forgiveness. So, so much for the disciples'
self-examination. Finally then, my third point,
and with this we'll be done. This passage also teaches us
some important truths regarding divine sovereignty and human
responsibility. In verse 21, the Lord Jesus Christ
says this, The Son of Man indeed goeth as it is written of Him. but woe to that man by whom the
son of man is betrayed. Good were it for that man if
he had never been born. What a solemn verse that is.
And here from the lips of the Lord Jesus Christ himself is
a clear statement of both biblical principles of divine sovereignty
and human responsibility. Men and women can wrestle with
this all that they like, though they should be humble enough
to see that they do so from a position of ignorance and a state of fallenness,
but then that's just not the way men think, is it? They think,
no, we'll sit in judgment upon God's ways of working. And that is the reason why God's
sovereignty and human responsibility are so much despised even in
professedly Christian circles. Our Lord Jesus Christ is telling
us in this verse that he was set up in eternity as the lamb
slain from the foundation of the world. The terms of the everlasting
covenant required the saviour's sacrifice and his blood. It required the voluntary assumption
of union with his people. And it assured fulfilment of
their salvation. In due time, The written Word
of God testified to the certainty and the outcome of the covenant
promises of God. And so that is why the Lord Jesus
Christ says, it is written of Him. It is written in the eternal
decrees of God. It is written in the revelation
of Holy Scripture. It is written in the words of
the Saviour Himself as He spoke and revealed Himself to His disciples
time after time after time that He must go to the cross, He must
go to Jerusalem and there be killed by the chief priests and
the scribes. The Son of Man indeed goeth as
it is written of Him. The Son of Man Indeed goeth to
the cross and to death as a slain lamb, a spotless sacrifice and
a redeemer of his people. Nothing could prevent or resist
this divine plan. this eternally established purpose. Nothing was left to chance. It
was going to happen. And right from the very beginning,
in the prophecies and the promises, all through the history of the
Old Testament, the Lord's line, Christ the son of David, was
being preserved. in the way in which God looked
after the Israelites according to the promises to Abraham and
preserved them all down through the years in the various countries
into which they were taken, the various foes that they had to
face, the kings who tried to annihilate them and destroy them. They were preserved, why? Because
the Christ child must be born from the line of David. Nothing
was left to chance. There was no doubt. There was
no uncertainty. There was no possibility of an
alternative way or another outcome. This way was eternally fixed. It was decreed by God. It was
predestinated before the foundation of the world. And it was ordained
according to his purpose. And that is divine sovereignty
at work in the salvation of the church. But, says the Son of God, woe
to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed. Good were it
for that man if he had never been born. Judas Iscariot was
that man, the man who betrayed the Lord Jesus Christ with a
kiss in the darkness of Gethsemane. Judas Iscariot was the man who
betrayed Christ, his friend, who had given him so much, who
had blessed him with so much, who had shown him so much and
spoken to him so tenderly. Judas Iscariot found no forgiveness
for his sin. He found no redemption for his
crime. And he carried his punishment
to hell. And today Judas Iscariot is in
hell. It would have been better for
him had he never been born. Judas acted from sinful motives. He acted from greed. And despite
the many, many blessings received from the Lord Jesus, he is a
testimony, the epitome of the hardness of the human heart,
except for God's grace. This is speaking to us of man's
responsibility. And the scriptures trace the
effects of sin to their true source. And the scriptures distinguish
between that which is precious, that which is of God, that which
is of grace, that which is to do with the church, and that
which is vile. and in the fall of Adam, and
in the pursuit of Satan and his principles. Malachi, the last
book in the Old Testament, tells us that between the righteous
and the wicked, between him that serveth God and him that serveth
him not, a distinction has been made. And in our Adam nature,
the elect as well as the non-elect are all alike, involved in the
ruin of our fallen nature, our fallen state, and all of us opposed
to God. And yet the Church, according
to the wisdom and knowledge of God, at His good pleasure and
for His glory, has been set apart, sanctified by God the Father,
preserved in Jesus Christ to the redemption of their souls,
called by God the Holy Spirit to experience mercy, peace, and
love. And that work, that distinguishing
work, is entirely a work of God's free grace, without any connection
or relationship with anything inherent in the part of the sinner. It is entirely of God's free
grace. The church in her grace union
with Christ is forever distinguished from the seed of the serpent.
That division, that distinction has been made in God's eternal
purpose. and there is no crossing over
between the two groups. The seed of the serpent are forever
excluded from any possibility of salvation. The church is forever
sanctified and loved. and redeemed by the blood of
the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. The rest? They are of old, says
Jude, ordained to condemnation. and the testimony of Scripture
affirms this repeatedly. They being, as Christ says of
some, ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your
father ye will do. Men and women always imagine
themselves to be neutral. free to act in a way that they
choose and they decide. And a whole religious heresy
has sprung up. That's true spiritual adultery. A whole religious heresy has
sprung up, catering to the whims of fallen men and women who believe
themselves to be neutral and free to decide for Christ anytime
they like. free to follow God if they wish,
at their will, at their whim. But scripture describes Judas
as a devil whom Satan entered into and took possession of. And the doctrine of reprobation,
which is what we're talking about here, is a fearsome doctrine
but it is no less true for its awfulness. Well might Christ
say, it would have been better were that man never born. Every man, woman, boy and girl
is in one of these two states, either in the grace union with
Christ or condemned already in their Adam nature with Satan. May God humble our hearts under
his gospel and give us faith in Christ, otherwise we have
no hope being without God in this world. Amen. May the Lord
bless these thoughts to our hearts.