I don't think you need to be
told this morning about the Lord's Supper by telling
you that this is a feast which we eat because our Savior said
to do this in remembrance of me. We don't come to this Lord's
Supper table because He ordered us to come to it. We come to
this Lord's Supper table willingly. because we want to come. We come
remembering the body and the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ
was broken and shed as a sacrifice for us to take away our sin.
There's nothing in this Lord's Supper that is going to save
us. It is an opportunity for us to worship Jesus Christ and
to praise him for dying on the cross for our sin. Nor should
I have to point out to you that Christ's sacrifice was offered
only once, because as the Holy Spirit says in Hebrews 10.14,
for by one offering he hath perfected forever them that are sanctified.
But this feast, this Lord's Supper by which we remember our Savior's
sacrificial death, is to be observed often. And when our Lord gave
us this picture, this picture that you have before you on this
table, when He gave us this picture by which we remember His love,
He said in Luke 22 verse 19, this do in remembrance of me. Believers come to this table
because they want to come. They come because they are blessed
by coming. They want to spiritually eat
the body and blood of Jesus Christ, their Savior, as they remember
and praise God that Jesus Christ died for their sins. Not that
this bread becomes his body, not that the wine becomes his
blood, but they are symbols, they are a picture of his broken
body and his shed blood. And Paul, by the inspiration
of the Holy Spirit of God, said in 1 Corinthians 11, 26, For
as often as you eat this bread, as often as you drink this cup,
you do show the Lord's death till he come. Well, showing the
Lord's death is exactly what we're doing this morning. We
come seeking to be with Christ, to look to Christ, to praise
Christ, to love Christ, because He died for us. So whenever we
serve the Lord's Supper, it's a feast. It's a joyous feast
by which we commemorate or we remember our Savior's one glorious
sacrifice as our substitute, and it is to be done often until
Christ comes again. And, since we don't know when
He's coming, maybe He might come today while we're having this
supper. I pray that He will. I don't know if it struck you
as it has me, but the Holy Spirit of God evidently intended that
the minds of the Lord's people would be directed to the Lord
Himself in every sacrifice, in every ordinance, in every activity
when the church comes together, whether it's an activity that
we are specifically instructed to do or not. We are always,
constantly, and especially when we draw together as part of His
body, we are especially to look to Jesus Christ. Not out of obligation,
but out of love, out of our joy which is in Christ. That's what
causes us to look to Him. If we look at what the church
has been led to do by the Holy Spirit, even as far back as Adam
and Eve in the Garden of Eden, we see that God gave them pictures.
Even under the law, God gave them pictures which were a shadowy
representation of Christ as their Savior. The Tree of Life in the
Garden of Eden was a picture of Christ. The animal skins which
God used to cover their nakedness after they sinned were pictures
that God used to point them in their need to Christ and to show
them God's love in Christ's salvation. When God killed those animals,
He used their skins, those skins like a symbol of Christ's robe
of righteousness. He used those skins to cover
Adam and Eve's nakedness. It was a blood sacrifice and
it was a loving picture of Christ's sacrifice for sin. Turn please
in your Bibles to Hebrews 11 verse 4. Fooled you, didn't I,
when I didn't ask you to start by turning right away. But one
of the clearest, one of the early pictures of Christ's sacrifice
for sin, and there are many clear pictures, but this is one of
the earliest, that were told about in scripture was the offering
to God that Abel made. Cain and Abel both made sacrifices
to God, but their offerings were both very different and they
were in direct contrast to each other. The difference was in
their relationship with God. The difference was that Abel's
offering was a blood sacrifice made by faith, which pictured
Christ's sacrifice. Because Abel sacrificed from
his flock, and I take that to mean he sacrificed a lamb, and
Cain's sacrifice didn't picture Christ's sacrifice, because he
brought it from the fruit of the ground. One sacrifice was
made out of love, the other was made out of obligation. As Hebrews
11.4 says, By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice
than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous.
God testifying of his gifts, and by it he being dead, he speaketh. God gave Abel the gift of faith,
and through his faith, although Abel died, he still speaks of
the blood that washes away sin. And in that, we see Abel's love
for his God. Abel wasn't righteous in himself.
All men are sinners, and we have all fallen short of the glory
of God. The difference wasn't that Abel did better than Cain,
but the difference between Cain and Abel's sacrifice was that
Abel's sacrifice was a blood sacrifice, which by faith, pointed
to the love of Christ. and Cain's sacrifice did not. Both brothers were making sacrifices
to God, but by faith, or with the eyes of faith, Abel was looking
to the Lamb slain from the foundation of the earth. Abel's sacrifice
was a blood sacrifice, which spoke of his hope of acceptance
with God in the blood of Christ. It's through the blood that Abel's
sacrifice by faith still speaks. While Cain in his offering looked
to God only as his creator. And by sacrificing from the fruit
of the ground, Cain was not showing himself to be a sinner unable
to save himself, as Abel was, or as one who was in need of
a Savior. Cain's sacrifice didn't speak of the blood because it
wasn't done in the faith of Christ. It was done out of Not done out of love, but it
was done out of obligation. And so it is said in Genesis
4 verses 4 and 5, And the Lord had respect unto Abel and to
his offering, but unto Cain and his offering he had not respect. The result was that Cain was
very wroth and his countenance fell. I think that Cain was ashamed
Instead of reacting in love, he reacted in hate, killing his
own brother. That's the kind of wrath, that's
the kind of self-pride that always causes that kind of difficulty
when our trust is in ourselves and our own righteousness and
not in Jesus Christ and His righteousness. I pray that you can each see
the grace of God in God's appointment of this ordinance to His church
and His people. Just as Jehovah and His trinity
of persons foresaw the fall of man, and so in love He appointed
the Lamb of God to be slain from the foundation of the world,
so also by His grace God has provided this loving picture
to teach His chosen ones about Christ's sacrifice for their
sin. God, using this picture of the
Lord's sacrifice for sin, is preaching His own sermon. He's
preaching His own sermon to His people with what is on this table. He showed the early church that
He would send a Savior, and that gave them hope. And in our case,
He's telling us in an eloquent sermon that out of love He did
send a Savior to save us. And oh how I pray that God makes
His sermon effective in all of our hearts, drawing us closer
and closer to Jesus Christ. He has laid out before you today
a sermon that tells us that Christ died for you, and then with His
blood, He has washed you clean from all of your sin. I ask you,
do you see God's love in that? I pray that you do. And for those
people of God's church who by God's grace have been given faith
to see Christ as their Savior, God has provided in this ordinance,
this loving picture by which sinners are regularly reminded
that Christ died for their sin, as God in His sermon points us
to look to Christ and His sacrifice for sin, trusting Christ for
our righteousness and not ourselves. Think about it. Think about it,
if you will. Don't we as believers, when we
come to the Lord's Supper Table, look on the elements that picture
Christ's broken body and shed blood, which was crucified for
us? Don't we spiritually eat of the
body and the blood of Christ as our bodies are refreshed by
the bread and wine? Doesn't it refresh you spiritually?
Doesn't it draw out your love for Christ to remember? as a
confessed sinner that Christ died for your sin? If it does,
that's God's loving reward to you and your loving response
by the faith of Christ. But the Lord's Supper, which
is before us today, isn't the first time that our gracious
God has given His people a supper to remember. The love of God is what we remember. Many years
ago there was the Jewish Passover which was also a supper and that
Jewish Passover prefigured the Lord's Supper which we're going
to eat today. The Passover meal was also a
picture of Christ and the love of God. Turn please to 1st Corinthians
5 verses 7 and 8 where we see Paul describing the Jewish Passover
this way He called Jesus Christ our Passover. Our Passover sacrifice
for us. And then he adds, therefore let
us keep the feast. In 1 Corinthians 5 verses 7 and
8, making several references to the Jewish Passover, Paul
said, purge out therefore the old leaven that ye may be a new
lump as you are unleavened. For even Christ our Passover,
even Christ the Lamb of God, is sacrifice for us. Therefore
let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with leaven
of malice and wickedness, but like Cain did, by malice and
wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
In other words, let us keep Christ's Passover in love. Moses, who was the man of God,
under whose ministry the Lord had instituted the Jewish Passover,
he considered the Passover as setting forth Christ, just as
the Lord's Supper does today. That's evident from what is said
about Moses in the book of Hebrews. Paul wrote in Hebrews 11, verse
28, that through faith he, Moses, through faith Moses kept the
Passover, and the sprinkling of blood, lest he that destroyed
the firstborn should touch them. It's a sure thing that Moses
and all of God's Old Testament Church saw the Lord Jesus Christ
by faith. In every service and in every
sacrifice they offered they saw the Lord Jesus Christ by faith.
But especially when they commemorated the Passover and their response
was to love God for all of his mercy to them. As Paul said in
Hebrews 9.22, and almost all things are by the law purged
with blood, and without shedding of blood is no remission. And
each believer in the Old Testament church, though they may not have
known the name of Jesus Christ, they knew and they lived and
they died by the faith of the promised Messiah. They died by
the faith of the promised Messiah in the full assurance of love
and faith that the blood of Jesus Christ, the Son, cleanses us
from all sin. The Jewish Passover is one of
the more significant and interesting events in the Old Testament because
it ties the Old Testament and the New Testament together, showing
us God's love in Christ, teaching us about Christ in each era,
So it seems to me that the Jewish Passover, under the teaching
of the Holy Spirit, would be an interesting thing for us to
meditate on today as we come to this Lord's Supper table. Oh, that our Lord might give
us all the faith of Christ, to see clearly God's love for us,
and to be reminded that Christ's sacrifice was made and His blood
was shed for us, for our sins. And so let's begin by looking
at the Jewish Passover and what it shows to believers symbolically.
First we see the love and the graciousness of the Lord Jesus
Christ as he introduces his ordinance of the Lord's Supper while he
is eating the Jewish Passover meal with his disciples. Turn
in your Bibles please to Exodus chapter 12. We'll be looking
at several passages in Exodus this morning and so I suggest
that you keep your finger or bookmark or something there if
you turn away from it. But as the Jews, the disciples
were very familiar with this Passover meal and so the Lord
is making a transition. The Lord is using the familiar
Passover to teach them and to comfort them. You need to remember
that this Passover of the church was served on the night before
his arrest, because the substance which is Christ, or the Messiah,
had now come to die for the sins of his people, which the Passover
pictured. This new ordinance of the Lord's Supper was now
about to replace the old Passover meal in God's church, though
they both pictured the same sacrifice of Christ. for the salvation
of His people. And so we see Jesus lovingly
teaching His disciples about the new by showing them the old. Even though they were to suffer
the loss of Christ's physical presence with them in a very
short time. Do you see Christ loving that?
I do. Do you remember when it was that
Christ gave us the Lord's Supper? Christ was so intent on showing
His mercy that he did it on the very night of bringing his people
out of their bondage of slavery, out of spiritual Egypt. The apostles
themselves were very troubled. They had many concerns. Jesus
had told them that he was about to die, but they didn't understand
it, and they had no idea about what the trials and difficulties
there were that lay before them. But God knew, and God intends
this Lord's Supper to be a comfort to our souls. The apostles were
troubled but they didn't yet know the opposition and the persecution
that they would suffer in the future. They would be persecuted
and die themselves for preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ. And
it was the same way so many years before when Moses was about to
lead his people out of world to Egypt where they were also
in bondage. They too were troubled as they
were about to make a journey through the wilderness to the
promised land. And they too were facing the opposition of Pharaoh,
who selflessly didn't want to see them go. In Exodus 12, 11,
before leaving Egypt that first Passover night, they had been
told by God through Moses to kill and eat the Passover lamb
like soldiers on a march. with their loins girded, their
shoes on their feet, and their staff in their hand, and to eat
in haste." And in verse 42, Moses, that man of God, when he was
summing up God's command to the people, he added their leaving
Egypt was to be that very night. In Exodus 12, verse 42, Moses
said, it is a night to be much remembered unto the Lord for
bringing them out from the land of Egypt. This is the night of
the Lord to be observed of all the children of Israel in their
generation. This is the night Moses was saying
to remember that God loves us. And we see that on this Lord's
Supper table. And I ask you to think about
this for a minute and to decide in your mind whether or not deliverance
of God's people from their bondage in Egypt was an event which was
wonderful enough and significant enough to be worthy of perpetual
remembrance by all of the generations of Israel. If you agree that
it was, and I do, then what should the significance be of that almighty
deliverance from bondage by the death of our most glorious Lord
and Savior Jesus Christ? How could you ever forget God's
love when He sent His own Son to die for us? But we do, don't
we? Jesus Christ delivered his people
from their everlasting bondage of sin and death, held in the
grave, and the remembrance of that salvation is the Lord's
Supper. If the importance of the Passover
was given such sacred regard, which was only the shadow of
the Son of God's sacrificial death for the sins of his people,
Then what should be the importance of the actual death of Christ
as our substitute and the memoration that he asks us to come to this
table for? Surely the remembrance of Christ's
death for our sin is even more important for a safe center to
remember. But such is the nature of men that God knew that we
needed to be reminded often about the importance of our Savior's
death. But more than that, the remembrance
of Christ's death brings comfort to troubled souls. Because in
Christ's death for our sin, we see the marvelous love of God,
and we should never forget it. But let's look closer at the
similarities between these two pictures of Christ's death for
sinners. And I suggested that you might want to follow along
as I try to paraphrase from Exodus 12. In the Jewish Passover, in Exodus
12.5 it says, a lamb without blemish, a male of the first
year, was to be set apart to be eaten in this important remembrance
meal. The lamb was to be taken from
the sheep, or from the goats, and verse 6 says that this lamb
was to be kept up or pinned up for four days before it was killed,
or in other words, from the tenth day of the month until the fourteenth
day of the month. Then in the evening of the fourth
day, the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel was to
kill it and eat it." What could that be describing? Well, what
could it possibly be describing except Jesus Christ? And verse
7 says that the blood of the lamb was to be taken and applied
over the door, over the top of the door and each of the side
posts of the door of those Jewish houses where that lamb was going
to be eaten. And verse 8 says that the flesh
of the lamb was to be eaten that same night by the people, roast
with fire and with unleavened bread and with bitter herbs they
were to eat it. And leavened pictures sin and
unleavened bread of course pictures the sinless purity of Christ.
And what could better describe the sufferings of Christ than
being roast with fire and eaten with bitter herbs. And then verse
9 tells us that the lamb was not to be eaten raw or boiled
in water, but roasted with fire, with its head and legs and inner
parts all together. And verse 10 says that nothing
was to be left remaining of the lamb until morning, and that
which did remain, they were to burn it with fire. And in this
way, the Lord says in verse 11, you shall eat it with your loins
girded, your shoes on your feet, your staff in your hand, and
you will eat it in haste. It is the Lord's Passover. In
verse 12, God says, For I will pass through the land of Egypt
that night, and I will strike all the firstborn in the land
of Egypt. Did you hear that? God says He's
going to strike, He's going to kill each of the firstborn of
Egypt. Both man and beast, He's going
to kill them all. He's going to execute His judgment.
He says, I am the Lord and it is right to do it. All who are
without a Savior are going to die. Die representatively in
those first born. Verse 13, And the blood will
be a sign for you, a sign of God's mercy and love on the houses
where you are. And God says, and when I see
the blood, I will pass over you. And no plague will befall you
to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt. Then in verse
14, and this day shall be for you a memorial day. And you shall
keep it as a feast to the Lord throughout your generations.
You shall keep it as a feast, as an ordinance of the statute
forever. Because how could you ever forget
God's love and mercy for sparing you on that night? And skipping
down to verse 26, it says, And when your children say to you,
What do you mean by this service? Verse 27 says, To the parents
you shall say, It is the sacrifice of the Lord's Passover. For he
passed over the houses of the people of Israel in Egypt, when
he struck the Egyptians, but spared our houses. And the people
bowed their heads, and they worshiped. That worship is their response
of love as they remembering what God did for them as He saved
them that night. I'd like to take each of these
verses and relate them to you as they relate to the Lord's
Supper. There just isn't enough time to do it thoroughly. But
I pray you can see clearly that the picture of Christ's sacrificial
death in the Passover is the same Christ that is in the Lord's
Supper. When you consider how far away
in time the birth of Christ and His death and His resurrection
was from the first Passover, it's wonderful to see Christ
in it. Oh, how I pray that you can look
to Christ as you come to this table. At the very hour when
the visible church was being formed, at the very time when
the church is being organized by God in Egypt, God was showing
them Jesus Christ as their Savior. And it was this same Lamb of
God that was being pictured by God in the Garden of Eden, and
that we also see on this table this morning. It's so wonderful
that every child of God, when he sees it by faith, he sees
the wonder of God by faith in Christ as his Redeemer. It's so wonderful he just has
to cry out as Paul did in 1 Corinthians 1 verse 24. that to those who
are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ is the power of God and
the wisdom of God. Jesus Christ is God's love gift
to his people. It's a sure thing that Moses,
as the minister of the Jewish Old Testament church, understood
this shadowy picture of the Passover as being a picture of Christ
who shed his blood for his people as he died as their substitute.
That's clear from Hebrews 11 verse 28 where Paul said about
Moses that through faith he kept the Passover and the sprinkle
of blood lest he that destroyed the first should touch them.
He understood clearly that it was by the blood on the lentils,
blood on the doorpost, that his people were saved. Of course
it was the Holy Spirit of God who showed Christ to Moses in
the Passover. And the Holy Spirit must also
show Christ to you in the Lord's Supper. If you're going to see
Him, you've got to be shown by the Holy Spirit of God. But let
me show you what I think Moses was shown in the Passover. By
faith, Moses saw the Lamb. It was a Lamb without blemish
that was sacrificed. A Lamb without sin, which could
only picture the Lamb of God who was without sin, but who
became sin as our Savior. That's also what the Holy Spirit
teaches every child of God as they look at the elements on
this table. It's what Peter saw in Christ
too. In 1 Peter 1 verses 18 and 19 he said, for as much as you
know that you were not redeemed with corruptible things as silver
and gold, you're not redeemed by your own efforts and your
own works. But from, and from vain conversation received by
tradition of your fathers, but the precious Blood of Christ
as of the Lamb without blemish and without spot is what has
redeemed you. If the Holy Spirit of God enables
us to see Christ by faith clearly as a Lamb without blemish or
spot, I think it will be a marvelous blessing to each one of us as
we prepare to come to the Lord's Supper table. Revelation 13 says
that Christ is the Lamb that was slain from the foundation
of the world. Jesus Christ is our Passover, given in love to
save his people from their sin. And that's what we remember,
that Christ died for our sin. And see too Peter on the day
of Pentecost who was preaching under the power of the Holy Spirit.
He expressed this same glorious doctrine to the people that he
was preaching to. Speaking of the Lord Jesus Christ,
he said about Christ in Acts 2.23, Him being delivered by
the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, you have taken and by
wicked hands have crucified and slain. And so too, just as Christ
was set up from everlasting, so also from the very beginning
of the church in the Old Testament time, before Christ tabernacled
in the substance of our flesh, every sacrifice that was made
showed forth Christ as the Savior of His people, the Lamb of the
morning, the Lamb of the Evening, as well as the Lamb of the Passover,
they all referred to Christ, our Savior. Without Christ, without
the Messiah, those sacrifices had no meaning. And so when God's
people saw Christ by faith, they glorified God. As the prophet
in Isaiah 53-7 said, when he saw Christ by the eye of faith
going to his crucifixion, he said, he who was oppressed And
he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth. He brought as
a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers
is dumb, so he opened not his mouth. But he didn't have to
speak, did he? The blood of Abel spoke for him.
The blood of Jesus Christ spoke. And according to John 1 verse
36, when John the Baptist saw Jesus Christ as he walked by,
he said, Behold the Lamb of God. And when the apostle John saw
the church in a vision surrounding the throne of God, he reported
in Revelation 5 saying, I beheld, and lo, in the midst of the throne,
and of the four beasts, and in the midst of the elders, stood
a lamb as it had been slain, having seven horns and seven
eyes, which are the seven spirits of God, sent forth into all the
earth. And in verse 9 of Revelation
5, John said that he could hear He could hear the saved saints
of God singing around the throne of God. He said, They sung a
new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open
the seals thereof. For thou wast slain, and hast
redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue,
and people, and nation. And in Revelation 7.14, John
also saw a similar vision of the Lamb in the midst of the
throne, surrounded by the church, which had washed their robes
and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Have I shown you
enough pictures of Christ that you can see by faith that the
Lamb in the Jewish Passover is a picture of the Lamb of God
who is Jesus Christ? But more importantly, can you
see by the faith of Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, dying for your
sin, because that's what's so important for you to see. Now,
as I often do, let me ask you a question as we are about to
come to the Lord's Supper table. I want to ask you the same question
that Jewish parents ask when their children ask them. It's in Exodus 12, verse 26.
It says that the children will ask, what mean ye by this service? Well, what is your answer? What
is meant by this Lord's Supper service? The Jewish children
were taught by their parents about the essentials of their
faith. And we find that in Deuteronomy 6 verse 21 where it says that
when they ask this question, then thou shalt say unto thy
son, we were Pharaoh's bondmen We were Pharaoh's slaves in Egypt. And the Lord brought us out of
Egypt with a mighty hand. That's why we come to this Lord's
Supper table. Because Jesus Christ, the Lord's
servant, has brought us out of our slavery with a mighty hand.
And so I ask you this same question. What is meant to you by this
service? If you are taught by the Holy Spirit of God, Then
by the faith of Christ you will surely answer like this. We were
bondsmen, not just to Pharaoh, but we were bondsmen to sin and
to Satan and to death and to hell and to the grave, and the
Lord our God has brought us out. When by his right hand and his
holy arm hath gotten him the victory, as it says in Psalm
98.1. Has God done that for you? That's
my question to you. Has God done that to you? Has
Christ set you free from the law of sin and death? Has Christ
set you free from your slavery to sin? As we come to this Lord's
Supper table today to remember this mighty salvation of God
which was accomplished completely by the glorious person and the
marvelous work of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Let us remember
that it is only in his most holy name that we can by faith draw
near to God. and only in his righteousness
that we can trust God for our salvation. All the leaven was
strictly to be removed from the houses of Israel when they celebrated
the Passover. And if the picture didn't allow
anything to be mingled with it, how would we dare to add anything
of our own righteousness to it? We come to this table with empty
hands. We come to this table with hands being washed clean
only by the blood of Christ. trusting only in his righteousness
and not our own. We come to this table as sinners,
sinners saved by the blood of Christ. We come testifying that
we're sinners washed by the blood of Christ and that the only cause
of our salvation is Jesus Christ who in love for us died that
we might have life in him. It is only by God's grace that
we are able to bring changed and renewed hearts to this Lord's
Supper table. which are the effects of the
work of God's grace in our hearts. All that we have, all that we
are, all that God has made us to be, and what God has given
to us in Christ by the Spirit of God, is how we come to this
table. We have received, but being poor
and needy sinners, we have nothing to give. And so we praise God
that money, that without money, without price, we have come to
eat from his table. As you come to this table, think
about this. In the Jewish Passover, it wasn't
the bars on the doors or even the prayers or the praises to
God that were offered from within those Jewish houses. It wasn't
these things that kept the people secure as the death angel passed
over them. But it was the blood that was
sprinkled on the lintel and the doorposts that caused him to
pass over. And it is only the blood of Jesus
Christ, it is only the Lamb of God that can save you and the
whole Church of God now today. The blood of Christ cleanses
from all sin. And if by the faith of Christ
you are given this understanding, and our most glorious Christ
comes to this table to receive us today, then our enjoyment
will be full and spiritual. And it will be a comfort to our
souls because of Him, because of Christ. We know and remember
that God sent His Son to die to save us from our sin. What a marvelous love we see
in that. And if at any time your children, like the Jewish children
at the Passover meal, ask you, what mean ye of this service?
Oh, what a wonderful answer you'll have to give to them, when by
faith and out of your redeemed and washed heart, out of your
love, you are able to say, well once I was dead, but now by the
grace of Christ I am risen again in Christ, in Christ Jesus my
Savior. I am made free. Jesus Christ
has washed me and made me perfectly clean by his blood. That's the
answer. Pray with me please.