How that blood was shed, that
precious blood was shed, that lamb. And God said, when I see
the blood, I'll pass over you. Now, beloved, it's the blood
that cleanses from sin. We know that. The blood of Jesus
Christ cleanses from all sin. It's the blood that makes atonement
for our soul. And we have the sure promise
of God, the sure promise of God Himself. When I see the blood,
I'll pass over you." Where that blood has been shed, where that
blood is in the presence of God and we submit to His blessed
Passover, Christ our Lord, that blood is our place of safety,
our place of salvation, cleansed in His blood, sin washed away
by the blood. Without the shedding of blood,
there's no remission. And the token that God give us,
that He has accepted us, is the blood of His blessed Son. The
token that He has given us, that His justice has been satisfied,
is that blood that's been shed. The token that we will be accepted
of God is that blood that's been shed. And where He sees that
blood, He passes over. For as much as you know, you
were not redeemed. by such corruptible things as
silver and gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, who
was the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world, and was manifest
in these last times for you, who by Him do believe in God."
Do believe in God. Now, I want us to talk this evening
about eating this Lamb, eating this Lamb, partaking of this
lamb. With the blood supplied, we must
partake of that lamb. We must partake of that lamb. Now look here in verse 8. I'm
going to read three verses, four verses here right quick. It says
in verse 8, And they shall eat the flesh, and that night roast
with fire, and unleavened bread. And with bitter herbs they shall
eat it, eat not of it raw, nor sod it all with water, but roast
with fire his head, with his legs, and with the pertinence
thereof. And ye shall let nothing of it remain until the morning,
and that which remaineth of it until the morning ye shall burn
with fire. And thus shall ye eat it, with
your loins girded, your shoes on your feet, and your staff
in your hand, and ye shall eat it in haste, for it is the Lord's
Passover." Now, the communion and the fellowship that we have
with our Lord Jesus Christ is because of the bloodshed. But it's the lamb eaten, the
lamb taken and eaten, that we come into fellowship and communion
with God Almighty. Now, I won't take time to read
it, but you can read it yourself. In John 6.53, our Lord said,
Except ye eat my flesh, and drink my blood, ye have no part with
me. But he that eateth my flesh,
and drinketh my blood, I shall give him eternal life, and I
shall raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed,
and my blood is drink indeed. And so he's talking about us
eating the Lord Jesus Christ. And what it means to eat the
Lamb, to eat this Lamb of God, to partake of the flesh and blood
of Christ, is, beloved, is taking the Lord Jesus by faith and eating
Him. We come tonight to partake of
the Lord Jesus Christ. Even if we wasn't taking the
Lord's table, we've come here to have... He said, I'm that
bread that came down from heaven. And so it's taking Him by faith
and eating, and that eating of Christ, that's what nourishes
our minds, what feeds our minds. With all that stuff that comes
in day after day and week after week, what do we have that puts
all that rest of stuff out of there? It's Christ as we partake
of Him. And it's Christ and eating Him
and this lamb eating the lamb that nourishes our souls and
feeds our souls. It's Christ as we partake of
Him and eat of Him and eat this lamb roast that satisfies our
hearts. And this lamb is sufficient,
is what I'm saying is sufficient for the whole man. Your mind,
your heart, your soul. For every day and every circumstance,
He's our blessed lamb. Now look what it says in verse
3. It's a lamb, down in the middle of the verse, a lamb according
to the house. So it tells us we have a Lamb, according to
house, a Lamb for us and our children. A Lamb for us and our
children. Down in verse 5, it says your
Lamb should be without blemish. Oh, our Lamb's without blemish.
He had to be a male in the first year. Our Lord Jesus Christ started
His ministry when He was 30. 33 years old, He was cut off
out of the land of the living. a male in his very prime, in
the strength of his life. And then he says in verse 6,
said, You shall keep it up the fourteenth day. Keep it up. Examine it. Examine it for fourteen
days. See if you can find any faults.
See if you can find any blemish. See if you can find anything
about it that there's something wrong with it. And you take the,
in all the years you've known Christ, And all the years you've
heard of Christ preached, and all the things you've seen about
Him in the Scriptures, have you ever seen a blemish in Him? Have
you ever found a fault in Him? No. Oh, no. No, no. No, every time I look at Him,
like He was the first time I saw Him, holy, harmless, undefiled,
separate from sinners, higher than the heavens itself. Oh,
my. He was without sin, sinless,
perfect in every way. And then it says in the last
part of verse 6, And the whole assembly of the congregation
of Israel shall kill it in the evening. Now what does it say
here? The whole assembly of Israel
shall kill it. You know it says it? They say that there was probably
250,000 lambs slaughtered this night. Over 200,000 lambs, a lamb for
a house, and yet, it says, the whole assembly of the congregation
of Israel shall kill him. That lamb, all those lambs was
viewed as one lamb. One sacrifice, and it pointed
to that one great sacrifice, he would come and put away sin
by the sacrifice of himself, our Lord Jesus Christ. And that
lamb was viewed as one, and the people were viewed as one. And
this blesses us. Christ, our Passover, is sacrificed
for us. So let's take a few minutes and
let's look. We rejoiced this morning in the beginning of months,
the beginning of our years. We're going to live on the Passover,
all the days of our lives. Now let's see how they ate this
Passover. How do we partake and commune
and have the oneness and union with God? We take Christ into
ourselves. Watch you take something to yourself. We partakers with Christ. But
look what it says here. Down here in verse 8. And they shall eat the flesh,
and that night roast with fire. The first thing about the lamb,
and eating this lamb, it has to be roasted with fire. Before
you can have any eat this lamb, it has to be roasted with fire.
And we know that fire in the scriptures is emblematic of judgment. The fire fell on the sacrifices. There was a continual fire on
the brazen altar. And we see where Abraham, when
he took Isaac upon the mountain, he took fire with him. He carried
the fire from the altar up there with him. And so you see, it's
a fire. Our God is a consuming fire.
So for Christ to be eaten, for us to partake of Christ being
the food for our hearts and our souls, it means that we take
Him as having suffered for us. Now what I mean by that is that
we partake of Him as one who endured the fire and the wrath
and judgment of God in our state. And if He did that, we're not
going to bring any of our own suffering and our own sacrifice
to this. He passed through the power of
God's wrath for us. You know, when our Lord prayed
in the garden, and He said, Father, let there be any other way, it
wasn't because He was fearful of death itself. It wasn't because
he hated and was afraid for his flesh to give up its life, but
the agony he was fixing to endure was for his father, his father
himself, the eternal God, who was the son, and the son of his
love, Christ, was going to come down And indignant and vengeance
and wrath and righteous wrath and judgment pour out, pour out
the wrath of God unmitigated on the Son of God, His own blessed
Son. And oh, and we come to Him as
one who suffered for us, roasted for us, bore our wrath. And we must know Him as one who's
been despised, one who's been rejected of men. And there was
that wrath of God was poured upon him, and God handed him
that cup. And it says over in Isaiah, he
tread the winepress of the wrath of God alone. Amen. Who is this that cometh up from
Basra with his garments red? He says, it's him who tread the
winepress of the fierceness of the wrath of God alone. And then God handed him that
cup, the cup of our sin, the cup of the wrath. You and I handed
him that cup. If there's any way to let this
cup pass from me, no way. Handed it to him. And you drink
that cup. We'll drink this cup tonight
and we'll empty it. But there's no drinks in it.
No dregs in anything we drink, and our Lord took that, the dregs
of our sin, the dregs of our shame, the dregs of our guilt,
the dregs of everything that we are. He took that cup and
turned it up, and took all the dregs out of it, and when He
got through taking the dregs out of it, that's when He said,
it's finished. Huh? Oh my, this is the object
of true faith. Christ crucified. Now listen
to what I'm going to tell you now. It's not the cross that
saves. That's why we don't say the old rugged cross. The cross
never saves us. That's why we don't wear it around
our neck and in our ears. It's because the cross doesn't
describe to us on that cross it saves us. It was that suffering
lamb as it was being roasted and being under the wrath of
God. That's what saves us. It's Christ bearing our sin and
bearing the judgment due to that sin, bearing the wrath due to
that sin. And, oh my, an atoning for our
sin that saves us. And as they ate this lamb roast
with fire. Christ our Lord must be trusted
in and looked to the one who suffered. He said in 1 Peter
3.18 that Christ hath once suffered, once suffered. What's suffered? And I'll never suffer. I'll do
a lot of suffering in this world. But it'll not be over my sin.
It won't be over my sin. I'm telling you this. You know,
that's part and parcel. We're under the curse. This flesh
is under the curse. But when I've seen God and what
God did in Christ for me, I'll do a lot. I do suffer. I suffer
in my mind. I suffer in my heart. I suffer
in my body. But I do not suffer for sin.
If God ever, ever causes me to suffer for a sin after Christ
suffered for my sin, what kind of God would He be? I'll suffer
because of my relationship to Adam. I'll suffer because God
said that this world and everything in it is cursed. But I'll never
suffer for one sin. Huh? That's what makes suffering
so So, you know, it don't tear you up, it don't stress you out,
it don't make you fall all to pieces. Because that's what religion
tells you. God's getting even with you for
your sin. If you repent, you wouldn't suffer like that. If
you'll get rid of your sin, you'll be okay. There must be some sin
in your life. No, no, when you understand that
He is more all your sin away, that He's more all the rest of
God, that your sins are gone, and that all the suffering you
do has not had nothing to do with God judging you, then you
can take the hand that God deals you and gives you and His providence
and say, Bless and be His name. You truly can. You don't have
to go to Him. If you go to Him weeping and
suffering, we get along with ourselves and we tell the Lord
about it. I'm telling you, beloved, we're not scorned. Christ has
once suffered for our sins, the just for the unjust. Why? That He might bring us to
God. So next time the devil tells
you that you've sinned and you're suffering because of your sin,
you say, get behind me, devil, you're lying. Christ doesn't
bore my sin. Christ doesn't suffer for my
sin. I'm suffering because I'm flesh. And that's what we're
looking for. We're looking for that day when
we're done with this. And then look what else it says
down here. In verse 9. Eat none of it raw. Eat none
of it raw. What in the world does that mean?
Don't eat it raw. Well, men like to separate Christ
from His atonement. And that's to take it raw. But the lamb must be roasted.
You hear all this time, all the time people say, preachers say,
Jesus wants to be your personal Savior. Is Jesus your personal
Savior? And they want Christ without His cross. They presume
often without His cross. Often without His suffering.
Often without His blood shedding. Only His love. Only His grace. Only His healing power. But there's
never no roasting. Never no... So don't eat it raw. They want Christ without His
cross. Without His sufferings. And you keep Exodus, and let
me show you a perfect illustration of that in Matthew 16. Here's
a man that was in just exactly that condition. He wanted Christ
raw. They don't mind having Jesus
as a prophet. You know the Jews. Most Jews
will say Jesus was a prophet. The Islams, the Muslims, they
call him a prophet. They say he's a prophet. He's
not equal to Mohammed, but he's a prophet. They don't mind having
him as a great teacher. Oh, what a great teacher he was.
Oh, one of the greatest philosophers and teachers ever walked us in.
They don't mind having him as a wonderful example. They'd like
to have him as a social worker. He done good work, so we gonna
go out and do good work, so we show people what Jesus would
do. All it is, is to eat the lamb raw. But we're not gonna
eat him raw. Look here what it says in Matthew
chapter 16. Look here now in verse you know,
in verse 16, where our Lord Jesus said, in verse 15, Who say that
I am? And Simon Peter answered and
said, You're the Christ, you're the Son of the living God. And our Lord said, O Simon, you're
so blessed. Flesh and blood didn't make you
know this, but my Father which is in heaven. Now look down at
verse 21. From that time forth began Jesus
to show unto his disciples how that he must go unto Jerusalem,
and suffer many things of the elders, and chief priests, and
scribes, and I want you, and be killed, and be raised again
the third day. Now watch the next verse say,
Peter began to rebuke him, and took him, saying, Be it far from
thee, Lord, it shall not be unto thee. He mourned Christ wronged,
wanted him without his cross, wanted him without his suffering.
Warned him without being slain. Warned him without his rejection.
Warned him without his atonement. And what did our Lord say unto
him? You get behind me, devil. If you're going to have me, you're
an offense to me. And that's what the devil does.
He wants Christ. If he gets you to have Christ
without his cross, Christ without his atonement, Christ without
his substitutionary death, Christ without bearing the wrath of
God, Christ without being a sin offer, he's got you right where
he wants you. But you can't have him that way.
And, oh, he said, you savor the things of not being God. Oh,
my, if you want to savor and taste and enjoy the things of
God, don't eat it raw. It's got to be roasted fine.
Now, look back over now. That's what happened. You know,
when our Lord was on the cross, you imagine those priests and
all those Roman soldiers and all those Jews gathered around
there, and they looked up at Him. And they said, here's this
man who called himself God, said he was the Son of God. And they
said to him, they saw him there and said, save yourself. You saved others, save yourself.
And they were thinking, ah, foolishness, isn't it? Look at him. Look at
the Son of God now. Look how foolish he looks, hanging
there naked. We've got all power over him.
But we look at the same thing, and we say, oh, the wizard of
God. They look at him and say, oh,
what a weak man he is. He couldn't possibly be God.
He can't even save himself much less anybody else. And they'll
say, look how weak. And we look at the same thing
and say, oh, the blessed power of God. Oh, aren't you grateful that
he is rosewood fire? And then look what else it says
here in verse 9 of Exodus. nor sodden with water. Don't
eat it raw, nor sodden with water. What is this name? Don't water
down Christ. Don't water down His atonement.
Don't water down His message. Don't water down His death. Don't
water down who He died for. You know, folks don't like the
fact that Christ died for a particular people. That's their problem.
It's not ours. They're the ones that's wrong. You know, our Lord, We're not
going to have the atonement watered down. We're not going to have
Christ sacrifice his substitution. Rather, God said, I'll put a
difference. I want everybody to know I'll
put a difference between Israel and Egypt. And people say, oh,
you think you want to know that? Yes, sir, I do. Why? Because
I believe Christ died for me. Our Lord said, I laid down my
life for whom? The sheep. He said, My Father
has given Him power over all flesh, over everybody's flesh. But here's what He does with
that power. He gives eternal life to everyone that the Father
has given. Ain't that what it says? And
He went off and prayed where He was praying for His people.
He said, Father, I pray not for the world, but I'm praying right
now for those that You've given Me out of the world. And He was
praying for us that night. And here we are 2,000 years later
in a road stop, a little spot on the map called Crossfield,
Tennessee. A handful of people. Oh, my. You think we're going to water
that damn boat? No. That lamb was for a particular
people. Thou shalt call his name Jesus,
for he shall save who? His people. A fellow told me
one time, he said, I guess it's hard to hear everything he says
about his people. I said, that's why God calls
them. He was meant for the translation of my people. Huh? They shall be called the children
of God. Oh, bless His holy name. You
know, when He said, He said, eat my flesh and drink my blood,
you shall not have eternal life. And they said, oh, this is a
hard saying. Who can hear it? I tell you who
can hear it. My sheep hear it. I hear it, don't you? And if
Christ suffered for you, if Christ suffered for you, if Christ is
your Passover, then I tell you, you do eat His flesh. You do
drink His blood. nourishes you, and keeps you,
and keeps you strong, and that's our food, that's what you're
here for. How many times have you said, oh, I'm just too tired
to go. My mind's too tired. I'm too
troubled. I'm too burdened. And you come
on. And because you come on, and you eat that flesh, and drink
that blood, and you get fed, and it's just like sat down when
you're really, really hungry, and you're weak in your body,
and you got the tendrils, and you sit down, and you eat that
roasted lamb, and you drink that blessed blood, and you leave
here, uh, encouraged, strengthened, fed. Oh my, we do eat it. And I'll
tell you what, if He did that for the world, if He suffered
for the world and shed His blood for the world, marker down, the
whole world's going to be saved. But let me ask you, does the
world eat His flesh? Does the world know anything
about that blood that He said, when I see it, I'll pass over?
No. Who does? Israel does. Israel does. And then look what he says in
verse 11. And down to the last part of
the verse, and he said, And ye shall eat it in haste. Eat it
in haste. It is the Lord's Passover. Now
what in the world does this mean for you and me right now? Well,
it means we're eating now. Right now. We've received Christ
right now. And those of you who've never
eaten, That's why I said, eat it in haste. Those of you who
Christ has been set before you, roasted with fire, the blood
has been shed, the blood has been preached, you eat Christ
now. Eat Him in haste. Eat Him right
now. Take Christ right now. Don't
wait. Don't wait. Don't wait another
moment. Don't wait another moment. You
come and you partake of Christ. There we are. Take of Christ
right this moment. And I'll tell you, when we wait,
when we say we're waiting, we're waiting to take up Christ, when
you say we're waiting, we're looking for some reason in ourselves
why we should or should not believe. And what's the reason? What's the reason you wouldn't
take up Christ? He's there. He's provided. The land's been
roasted. The blood's been shed. Huh? Take Him right now. And if you
wait, if you wait, you know what you're doing? You're looking
for some reason in yourself why God would receive you. God receives
Him, and He'll receive everybody who protects Him. Huh? You say, I just don't know. Well,
you don't need to understand. If God didn't say you need to
understand, He said the blood's there. He said the Lamb's been
raised. Eat it! That's as simple as that. Oh,
take Christ right now. Take Him and say, Lord, I want
You. You know, we read in the Scriptures, it says, taste and
see that the Lord is good. Oh, we've tasted that the Lord
is gracious. And we taste the Lord. And take
Christ back. Take Him yourself and eat Him. Taste His graciousness. Taste
His power. Taste what it is for Him to bear
your sins. And let that become part and
parcel of you. And enjoy Him as you partake
of Him. I want you to do it right now. Are you hungry? Come and take the Lord Jesus.
And I'll tell you something, I know without a shadow of a
doubt, He'll satisfy your very soul. And when your soul, when
you understand the satisfied God, because He said, when I
see the blood, I'll pass over. And you take Christ on God's
terms, since God's satisfied, you'll be satisfied. Your conscience
and heart will just go to rest. And then He says in verse 10,
And ye shall let nothing of it remain until the morning. What
does this mean? Need all of it. Don't leave nothing. Don't leave nothing behind. Take
all of it. Ain't you glad that we get all
of Christ? You see, we must have a whole
Christ. We must have a whole lamb. Huh? And let me tell you
what this tells us, beloved. Some want the Lord Jesus as an
example. You know, people, and they tell
you, how many times has somebody told you this? When they see
you say something or do something or something, they'll say, well,
I thought you was a Christian. Where do you go to church at? You know? Ah, boy, I'll tell you what,
if I ever become one, I'm going to meet you. They want Christ
as an example, and use His example against His old people. But they
don't want His doctrine. They don't want His doctrine.
They don't want Christ and His teachings. That I'm the way,
I'm the truth. You're not going to talk to God
except through me. There's no sacrifice for sin but me. There's no one who can set you
free but me. And except you believe I'm He, you'll die in your sins. Oh, he told it plain. But oh,
my. Oh, we'd love to have His example,
but we've got to have His teaching too. got to have his doctrine. And some love his doctrine, but
don't want nothing to do with his precepts. And I've run across
some of these. I know some of you right now
that when you mention faith, they think you're talking about
preaching works. These are strong, devout, I mean
strong Calvinists. I mean hardcore Calvinists. They've got tattoos of Calvinism
on them. I mean, they're strong Calvinists,
ten over years in love with Calvinism. But boy, you start preaching,
if you love me, you'll keep my commandments. Huh? He that's born of God overcometh
the world, even the faith that's given us overcomes. And you start
talking about things like that, and they say, well, your preaching
works now. When you start preaching that God's people love the gospel,
they're going to attend where the gospel's at. And they're
going to love one another and enjoy one another. They say,
oh my, you're preaching works now. But oh my, I don't care
one way or another, I'm going to keep on preaching. Then you
know, as Old Spurgeon said one time, just because a man hangs
himself with rope, that don't mean we're going to hide all
the ropes. And, you know, if a man takes
the Scriptures and hangs himself with them, that's his problem.
If it ain't ours, I'm going to just keep on hanging. I'm going
to keep... I've still got the rope in there. I'm going to keep
throwing the rope out there. Huh? Ain't that right? But nothing of our Lord must
be left off. We must have His doctrines, and
we want His doctrines. And we want His precepts. We
want His precepts. By this shall all men know Him,
my Lord, my disciple. Because you'll have love one
toward another. Then he says, when he walks on his feet, he
says, you honor your Lord and your Master, and you say, well,
for so am I, and as you've seen me do, so do you. Humble yourself
to one another. Be as little children. These
are precepts that we long, long in desire to obey. Grown in our
hearts because we're not humble enough, and because of our pride
and suffering, we want to find out what He says, and by His
grace, do that. Oh my, we want everything. And
I tell you what, there's no more in Christ than the sinner absolutely
needs. Is there any part of Christ you
don't need? No. I need the whole Lamb, don't
you? And if He's going to be your
substitute and my substitute, then He's got to also be my King.
If He's going to be my Savior, He saved me from my sin. He must
also be my Lord and my Master. Not the Lord just merely for
me to trust, but also to obey. You see, He's not only our justification
before God, but He's also our sanctification. He sets us apart. Makes us holy people. That's
why Paul said, is Christ divided? No. And look what it says up
there in verse 9 about eating Him roast with His fire. And
it says, with his head, with his legs, and with the pertinence
thereof. That's the word pertinent means
pertains to. Everything that pertains to him.
And all I want, he'll eat all of it. And then look down here
in verse 8. What you eat him with. And they
shall eat the flesh, and that night roast with fire. And watch
this, an unleavened bread. Unleavened bread. And what does this mean? You
keep this, and look with me over in 1 Corinthians 5, just a moment.
I quoted this this morning, but I think we need to look at it
this evening. 1 Corinthians chapter 5. And Paul here is talking about
some people here at Corinth, in the church at Corinth, who,
they got puffed up, and he said they had leaven. Our Lord said,
Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees. Sin and hypocrisy. And a man
had committed incest and taken his father's wife, evidently
his stepmother, and instead of the church dealing with him and
rebuking him the right way, they all got puffed up. They said,
I wouldn't do that. No, I tell you, I don't see how
he done that. Why do you know? And then Paul says here in verse
6, your glory is not good. For you to glory in the fact
that you wouldn't do that? You don't see how he could have
done that? No, you're not, that a little
leaven leavens a whole lot. If you glory in anything besides
Christ, you've got leaven in it. It's leaven. Now watch this. Purge out, therefore, the old
leaven, that you may be a new lot, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ, our Passover,
is sacrificed for us. Therefore let us keep the feast,
not with the leaven of malice," malice, being evil-hearted towards
others and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity
and truth. Honest before God, facing the
truth of ourselves before God, And, O beloved, we receive our
Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity. We receive this Lamb, and we
eat Him with sincerity. And we take the whole Christ,
and so He has the whole of us. And we must be honest here. When
it comes to worshiping God and partaking of Christ and His sacrifice,
we can't play act here. We don't travel with the Lord
here. We don't pretend here. Oh no, we've got Christ. And
if we have all of Him, He must have all of us. Ain't that right?
Ain't that right? Oh, we purge out the old leaven
of traditions. The old leaven of works. The
idea that our works is going to contribute anything. The idea
that we're worth something before God. That our merit, something
we do is going to merit something before God. Our envy and malice.
Purge out all of that. Purge it out. Purge it out. And
then look what it says here in verse 8 again, last part, after
unleavened bread. And with bitter herbs shall they
eat it. What are these bitter herbs?
These bitter herbs were given to enhance the taste of the lamb
as it was roasted. It might be like you flavoring
meat. Well, they had these bitter herbs to enhance the flavor of
the lamb as it was roasted. And these bitter herbs, we get
Christ, and He gives us a lot of bitter herbs to make Christ
sweeter to us. Now, some of these bitter herbs
that we have, and with this, remember the bitterness of your
bondage, the bitterness of how unbounded sin you were, and the
bitterness of your conceptions of God and all that, and God
began to show it to you, or you just, oh, how could I have thought,
how could I have believed, and that's that bitterness. But oh,
when you see that, and you see Christ, that makes Christ that
much sweeter to you, that He saved us from that. And then
those bitter herbs of repentance. Oh, repentance means a change
of mind. Oh, what a change of mind we
had about ourselves. What a change of mind we had
about God. And we often still have this
repentance, and these bitter herbs of repentance, of this
dying, and the bitter herbs of our unworthiness and poorness
of spirit. All these things make Christ.
Oh, how can it be, how can it be that Thou, my God, should
die for me? Can my God His wrath forbear
me, the chief of sinners spared? And all this unworthiness, that's
what makes Christ sweeter to us. And then, beloved, as we
travel through this world, There's a lot of bitter herbs goes with
living. A lot of bitter herbs go with it. Oh, there's the bitter
herbs of all our afflictions. All afflictions that we have.
How many afflictions that we have? Afflictions in our mind,
afflictions in our hearts, afflictions in our bodies, and trials. Oh, do you know what an affliction
it'd be for a child to die and have to bury a child? You know
what a bitter herb that would be? Do you know what a bitter herb
it is to have a trial and the doctor says, you know, you ain't
got but six months to live and have to walk off and leave your
children? It happens all the time. And you know, the bitter herbs
are sin, but all these bitter herbs that we have while we pass
through life, all these make Christ that much bigger to us.
What would we do if we didn't have Him to go to and partake
of? What would we do? Huh? Oh, my. And I tell you what, if you're
going to have the Lamb, you've got to have the bitter herbs
to go with it. Ain't that what it says? Eat Him with unleavened
bread and bitter herbs. They go with it. But you know,
who in the world cares? As long as we have the Lamb,
and He's been roasted with fire, And the blood's been applied.
Who cares? Who cares? All the suffering
we're going to have is in this world. And if God gave us nothing,
nothing but a bed of ease and an easy road to travel, we wouldn't
be worth the salt that goes in our bread, would we? But every bitter thing we have
makes Christ that much sweeter. And then, oh, you're going to
like this in closing. You're going to love this. You're
going to love this. Look there at verse 11. And I'm
through here. And thus shall you eat it, with
your loins girded, your shoes on your feet, your staff in your
hand, and you shall eat it in haste. It's the Lord's passion.
Why did He say do that? They ate it with their traveling
clothes on. They're fixed to leave. They can't leave Egypt
until the lamb's been roasted, the blood's been shed, and they've
ate it before they ever get to leave Egypt. They're leaving. They're leaving
there, beloved. And we've got our traveling clothes
on. You know that? We've got our
traveling clothes on. This world's not our home. Thank God it's
not our home. Them girls sang that this morning.
Oh, what a day that will be when Christ I shall sing. Oh, this
world's not our home. We started off in exodus just
like they did. We're bound and headed for the
promised land. And oh, he said, let your loins
be girded. Ephesians says our loins are
girded out with the truth. Have your shoes on your feet.
We're shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace. Huh? And we've got a staff in our
hand. What's our staff? We've got a staff. And I'll tell
you what, it'll hold you up. It will hold you up. You can
lean on it and lean on it hard and it won't let you down. Let's
look together at Hebrews. Hebrews chapter 11. Hebrews chapter
11. Oh, we eat it with our traveling
clothes on. We've got our traveling clothes on. Yes, He dressed us.
The same one who provided the lamb. Oh, He dressed us. He gave us the truth. He gave
us the gospel of peace. He gave us the shield of faith.
He gave us the helmet of salvation. Gave us the sword of the Spirit.
Gave us the shield of faith. Everything we need, he's given
us to travel on in this world. Look here in Hebrews 11, verse
9. This is where we're at. By faith,
Abram sojourned in the land of promise. Now, he's in the place
God told him to be. He said, I believe this is a
strange country. He's traveling around in the
land of promise, and yet it's a strange country. And he dwells
in tabernacles, that means with tents, with icy conjectures,
as with him of the same promise. What was he looking for, traveling
around in that strange country? He was looking for a city. He
spent over a hundred years looking for a city. From the day God
called him out of the Ur of the Galilees, he sat right then and
there looking for a city. And what kind of city was he
looking for? The same one I am, that has some foundations. There
ain't no foundations in this world except Him, whose builder
and maker is God. Now look down in verse 13. Oh,
these all died in faith, according to the faith and believing the
promises of God. And oh, they received them, and
oh, they saw them a way off, and they persuaded, those promises
persuaded them, so they embraced them. And in embracing them promises,
they confessed that they were strangers here, they were pilgrims
here. And they that say such things,
and do this, and embrace these promises, and confess to strangers
and pilgrims, declare plainly that they're looking for another
country. We're looking for another country. And truly, if they'd
been mindful of that country from which they came out, oh,
if they remembered where... You remember the country you
came out of? I remember the world I come out of. I remember it
well. I remember it well. Lying and cheating and drunkenness
and despicableness and like a hog, you know, just a hog wallowing
in the mud. I don't want to go back. I ain't
mindful of it. I'm ashamed of it. Got my back
to it. I'm like Pilgrim when he went
out sinning and stretching. He went out with his back to
it. Got my back to this world. And watch what he says here.
Lord, I tell you, if you can leave the gospel, you will. If
you can go back to the world, you will. But oh, watch what
happens now. But now they desire a better
country. A heavenly country! Heavenly
brethren with a heavenly calling is looking for a heavenly country.
And watch this, "...because they confessed the strangers and pilgrims,
looking for that heavenly country, embraced them blessed promises,
embraced his blessed Son, wherefore God is not ashamed to be called
their God." Now watch this, for he hath prepared for them a city."
A city. Oh, here we don't have a continuing
city, but we look for one to come. You got some traveling
clothes on? You know, that's why we, you
know, it hurts us, it hurts our hearts when we lose somebody
we truly, truly love. But in another way, we so rejoice
when they You know, we so rejoice, especially if somebody's been
sick while we're sick. Oh, we rejoice. Thank God God
took them home. Took them home. You know why? Because they was dressed ready
to go. They didn't have to get ready.
They was already ready. I don't have to get ready. The Lord calls me and I don't
have to get ready. I'm ready. Look at my shoes. Look at this truth around me. Look at my staff. I'm ready to
go. Ready to move. Oh, our Father, our gracious,
gracious, gracious, blessed God and Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ, thank you for such a gospel with such power, such comfort,
such assurance. You told us in your Word to comfort
you sheep, comfort you, comfort you, my people. And, O Lord,
You gave us comfort today. O Holy Spirit, You took the things
of Christ and comforted us and strengthened us, fed us, encouraged
us today, and we thank You. Thank You for this blessed Lamb
of God. Thank You, Lord Jesus, for suffering
so, and help us ever to feast and feed on You. Never feed on
anything but You. your work, your broken body,
your shed blood. We thank you. In our Lord Jesus'
name, amen. Amen.