Exodus 12, verse 25 through 27. Exodus 12, 25 through 27, and
it shall come to pass, when you be come to the land
which the Lord will give you, according as he hath promised,
that you shall keep this service, And it shall come to pass when
your children shall say unto you, what mean ye by this service? That you shall say, it is the
sacrifice of the Lord's Passover, who passed over the houses of
the children of Israel in Egypt, when he smote the Egyptians and
delivered our houses, and the people bowed the head. and worshiped. Now then, we have gathered together
here tonight in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. I trust that
we have gathered in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ because
he promised in his word that where two or three are met together
in his name that he would be in their midst. And we have sung
hymns of praise and hymns of thanksgiving to our God. And
we have selected hymns that have reference to the blood of Christ
and to the suffering of Christ and to the broken body of our
Lord Jesus Christ. And the pastor is in his place
and the deacons are in their places and we have before us
here on this table bread and wine, broken bread and wine poured
in a cup. Now in a few moments each believer
here, each redeemed person, will receive some of this bread and
some of this wine. And we will eat the unleavened
bread and we will drink the wine in a most solemn manner. We will eat the bread and drink
the wine with reverence and yet with great joy. We will eat the
bread and drink the wine conscious of our sins, conscious of our
unworthiness, and yet with full knowledge of our forgiveness. We will eat that bread and drink
that wine knowing that the bread is but bread, nothing more, that
it has no saving power for anyone, not in itself. And yet this bread takes on great
significance, as though it were the actual body of our Lord.
It is not. But yet it represents His body. And it carries a significance
that makes it greater and more important than ordinary bread,
and a fearful thing to take it, not discerning its significance. And we will drink that wine knowing
that it is but wine. It can be poured, that which
is left can be poured back in the bottle and stored for another
time. That this wine has no healing
power in itself, it has no saving power in itself, it is not a
sacrament And yet our Lord said when he handed that wine to his
disciples, he said, this is my blood. This is my blood, which is shed
for the many, for the remission of their sins. And that blood
has healing power. And that blood has saving, sanctifying
power. that blood which this wine represents, which lends great significance
to the wine which we hold in our hands, and yet remembering that it is a memorial feast.
It is not a funeral, it is a feast. It is a supper. And the bread is but bread, and
the wine is but wine. But our Lord gave it great importance
when He said, this is my body broken for you, this is my blood
shed for you. And the Apostle Paul gave it
great importance when he said, let a man examine himself and
so let him eat and so let him drink. For he that eateth and drinketh
in an unworthy fashion eateth and drinketh destruction to himself,
For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, not discerning
the Lord's body. And we take this bread and we
take this wine, constantly examining ourselves, examining ourselves to find within
us, not examining anyone else, but examining ourselves to find
within ourselves some discernment, some understanding, of this great
sacrifice, as Tom said, this substitutionary sacrifice, which
gave satisfaction to the holy law of God and the justice of
the living God, and constantly examining ourselves to find faith. When the Son of Man cometh, will
He find faith on this earth? May He find it in me. May He
find it in you. And we do search to find that
faith in Him, in Him, not in a system, not in a doctrine,
not in an ordinance, but to find faith in Him, in Him and His
blessed work. And while we come constantly
examining ourselves to find that discernment and that understanding
and that faith, yet we come, yet we come. He said, let a man
examine himself and so let him come. He didn't say let a man
examine himself and stay away, but let him examine himself and
come and take the bread. And we come boldly, boldly as
the chief of sinners, but boldly because the chief of sinners
is coming to a throne of grace. And he's coming for one purpose,
to find mercy. Not merit. Mercy. And there's mercy there. There's
mercy for the greatest sinner. There's mercy for the weakest
sinner. There's mercy for the chief of
sinners. But that mercy is in Christ. And that mercy is because
of this broken body and this shed blood. So when your children,
your children, Moses said to the Israelites,
when your children ask, what mean ye by this service? So I
say when your children ask, or when your own heart asks, what
mean ye by this service? What shall we say? Well, the
old Jews say it's the service of the Lord's Passover. who passed
over the houses of the children of Israel in Egypt when he smote
the Egyptians and delivered our houses. And when our children
ask, what mean ye by this service? We say, it's the Lord's table. It's the Lord's table, not the
church's table. It's the Lord's table. It's served
up by one host, the Lord of glory, who in his grace and in his mercy
passed over us. when his judgment and wrath fell
upon Adam's race. And because of the blood of his
dear son, which was shed for the remission of our sins, and
because of the suffering body of his dear son, which bore our
guilt and our iniquities, he delivered our souls." It's the
Lord's tape. Now, all that our Lord did in
redemption is promised in the Old Testament. That's the reason
I turned here to Exodus 12, because all that he did is not only promised,
but it's prophesied in the Old Testament Scriptures, and it's
pictured in the Old Testament. For example, Paul said this,
brethren, I preached unto you the gospel, by which you have
received, in which you have believed, how that Christ died for our
sins according to the Scriptures. According to the Scriptures,
that He was buried and rose again according to the Scriptures.
For Christ, our Passover, is sacrificed for us. Christ is
our Passover. If you look now at Exodus 12,
beginning with verse 3, we're going to see this prophecy in
this picture. in Exodus 12, verse 3. Now here
was Israel down in Egypt, as we were in, like Tom said in
his prayer, the darkness of human religion, tradition, form and
ceremony, without life, without God, without life, without Christ. But he came down to Egypt and
he said to the Israelites in verse 3, he said, now Moses,
speak! Ye unto all the congregation
of Israel, saying, in the tenth day of the month, this month,
they shall take to them every man a lamb." A lamb. Now, this lamb is Christ. This
is not the first mention of the lamb. When God covered Adam and
Eve in the Garden of Eden with coats of skin, shed the blood
of an animal to cover them And he didn't cover them with wool,
he covered them with the skin. So, blood had to be shed. A life had to be given. That's
the first picture we have of substitution. A lamb died that
man's nakedness might be covered. Then Abel brought a lamb. And
then Abraham brought a lamb. And here he said, take a lamb.
So Christ is our lamb. He's the lamb slain before the
foundation of the world. He's the Lamb in the midst of
the throne as it had been slain. When John the Baptist saw Him
at the river Jordan, he said, Behold the Lamb of God. And Isaiah
said, He's led as a lamb to the slaughter. As a sheep before
her shearers is dumb, He opened not His mouth. So this Lamb here,
this Lamb in Egypt is Christ. It's Christ. Now he says, Take
a lamb according to the house of their fathers, a lamb for
a house. And if the household be too little for the lamb, let
him and his neighbor next to the house take it according to
the number of souls. Every man, according to his eating,
shall make your count for the lamb. And your lamb shall be
without blemish. Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lamb
of God, is without blemish. He knew no sin. He did no sin. No guile was in his mouth. The
Heavenly Father said, This is my Son in whom I am well pleased.
Our lamb is without spot or blemish. They were not to take an afflicted
lamb, or a lamb that nobody wanted, or a diseased lamb, but the first
sling of the flock. The best lamb, the one without
blemish or spot, a male, not an old lamb about to die, or
a baby lamb that's just been born, but a lamb of the first
year in the prime of life. Our Lord Jesus Christ is God's
lamb. without spot or blemish, 33 years
old in the prime of life. And you shall take it, verse
5, from the sheep or from the goats, and put it up for four
days. Select it on the tenth day and
put it up for four days to the fourteenth day of the same month
and observe it. And observe it. How do I liken
that to Christ? Our Lord Jesus Christ from all
eternity. A son is given, a child is born. And that son which is given,
his name is Wonderful, Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting
Father, the Prince of Peace. But the Father prepared a body
for him. And that body was shaped and
conceived, shaped and formed in the womb of a woman, just
like you and I were born, yet without a human father. And he
came forth from the womb, and our Master came and took up his
abode in that body. And he lived on this earth carefully
observed. He was tested of Satan under
the most rigid circumstances, having fasted for 40 days. He
was tested of the law, every law, Moses' law, moral law, Levitical
law, the civil law, the laws of the land, the laws of the
home. For these 33 and a half years, our Lord was observed
and tested and tried. tipped it at all points as we
are, yet no fault was found in Him. No fault. Keep it up to
the 14th day and then kill it. And then kill it. Our Lamb was
slain. He was wounded for our transgression. He was bruised
for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace
was upon Him and by His stripes we're healed. The soul that sinneth
shall die, shall surely die. Sin, when it's finished, bringeth
forth death. And Christ had to die. You can't
have the shed blood without the death of the one who shed it.
You see, when you take this bread and you break it, that's his
body broken, broken. His visage was marred as no other
man. He had no form, no comeliness.
that we should desire Him. We hid, as it were, our faces
from Him. The shame of Him, humiliation
of His death and His broken body was so awful, awful. And when you take the wine and
you squeeze it from the grape, the juice is pulverized and mashed
from the grape and then poured into a glass. That's a picture
of our Lord's blood being shed. And so He died. Death must occur. All right, verse 7, and then
take the blood. Here's an act of faith. Take
the blood. You don't only just select the
lamb and observe the lamb and slay the lamb, but you take the
blood. Take it. Here, this is my blood,
which is said for you, take and eat, take and drink. You take
it and strike it on the two side poles and on the upper Doorpost
of the houses wherein you shall eat it now you shall eat the
carcass Eat it you shall eat it You shall eat the flesh verse
8 that night Roast it with fire now when they took the lamb When
the Israelites took the lamb, which is Christ Without blemish
without spot A male of the first year and they observed it It
passed the test. It didn't fail. Then they slew
it. And they caught the blood. And they put that blood on the
lintel in the doorpost, and then they roasted the lamb. That's
a picture of His agony and suffering, hanging on that cruel cross.
Our Lord suffered as no man ever suffered. The preaching and pictures
and sculpture today makes it look glamorous, but the cross
was a horrible indescribable experience, an ignominious death. He was naked. He didn't have
a loincloth on. His face had been beaten to a
pulp. His beard had been plucked out.
His back lacerated. He went through hell on that
cross. The agony and heat and suffering
and burning of hell on that cross, under that horrible heat Not
only of the temperature from within, but from without. And
the desertion of all men, yea, even of his dear father. Burn
it, he said. Take that carcass and burn it. And that's what they did. Burn
it. Roast it with fire. All right,
look at the next line. And eat it with unleavened bread
and bitter herbs. What are the bitter herbs? Well,
that denotes our sorrowful sin and our repentance. It's not
to be tasted. It's not to be served in a manner
of sweetened and pleasant, but with bitter herbs. You eat it
with sorrow, with repentance, with grief over your sin. Verse
9, don't eat it raw. Christ must suffer. He must suffer. It's not just His life by which
we're saved, though we are. We're saved by death. You can't
just have the example of Christ and even the perfect life of
Christ. You've got to have the blood
of Christ, the death of Christ. Now by His life, as we heard
a moment ago, He imputed to us a perfect righteousness. But
an incarnate Lord And a perfect life and a perfect example will
not save. Has to be a cross. Has to be
death. So you don't eat this lamb raw
now. You cook it, you roast it with fire. Christ must suffer
for by death, by blood, he saves his people. And don't you sodden
it with water. Don't you make gravy and put
on it either. Eat it plain. We don't want any works mixed
up with it. We don't want any of the dainies of the flesh or
any of the trifling of man's hands. Roast it and eat it not
raw, eat it roasted and eat it with bitter herbs of repentance
and sorrow for sin and don't mix anything with it. No water,
no gravy, no salt. It's Christ in Christ alone.
And that's the biggest struggle that people have today, is trust
in Christ. They'll trust Christ in anything
else. But that won't save. In fact, actually, if you add
anything to Christ, He profits you nothing. He becomes a stumbling
block to you. So don't you mix any water with
it or anything else. And you eat, watch it now, eat
the head, the legs, and the inner parts. Eat it all. Leave none. If the house is too big, too
little for the lamb, you two houses go together, but don't
you leave any of it, because when we receive Christ, we receive
Christ in all His offices, in all His attributes, in all His
person and work, and not half of Christ. You can't have Christ
as priest unless you have Him as King and Prophet. You can't
have Christ as Savior and not have Him as Lord. You can't have
Christ as an example and not have Him as the Creator. You
can't have Christ the Creator and not have Him the sovereign,
reigning Redeemer over all His heritage. Not half of Christ. Won't do. Won't do. Won't do. Not free force of a Christ. It's
got to be all. It's got to be as He is in all
of His glory and power. Verse 10 don't you let any of
it remain to the morning that which remaineth you'll burn it
with fire And eat it with your Lawrence girted verse 11 your
shoes on your feet your staff in your hand eat it in haste
We're moving on we look for a city not made with hands eternal in
the heavens And this is the Lord's Passover. I'll pass through the
land of Egypt this night I'll do it. God said the world has
a death angel doing it, but God does it And I'll smite all the
firstborn in the land of Egypt, man and beast, and against all
the gods of Egypt I'll execute judgment. I'm the Lord, and the
blood shall be to you for a token upon the houses where you are.
And when I see the blood, I'll pass over you. I'll pass over
you. Pass over you. And the plague
shall not be upon you, destroy you when I smite the land of
Egypt. And this day shall be unto you for a memorial, and
you shall keep it a feast to the Lord throughout your generations.
You'll keep it a feast by an ordinance forever." All right,
turn to Luke 22. And this, in Luke 22, is when
our Lord Jesus Christ gathered His disciples together to observe
the last Passover, right before He suffered, right
before God's Lamb without blemish or spot. burned on the altar of Calvary
and shed his blood, that we might be redeemed. In Luke 22, beginning
with verse 7, then came the day of unleavened bread, when the
Passover must be killed. And he sent Peter and John, saying,
Go and prepare us the Passover that we may eat. And they said
to him, Wherewithal we prepare? He said unto them, Behold, when
you are entered into the city, there shall a man meet you, bearing
a pitcher of water. Follow him into the house where
he entereth in. And you shall say unto the good men of the
house, the master saith unto thee, where is the guest chamber
where I shall eat the Passover with my disciples? And he'll
show you a large upper room furnished there, make ready. And they went.
And they found as he had said unto them, and they made ready
the Passover. And when the hour was come, he sat down and the
12 apostles with him. And he said unto them, with desire,
I have desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. For
I say unto you, I will not any more eat thereof until it be
fulfilled in the kingdom of God. And he took the cup, and he gave
thanks, and he said, Take this and divide it among yourselves.
For I say unto you, I will not drink of the foot of the vine
until the kingdom of God shall come. And he took bread and gave
thanks, and break it, and gave it unto them, saying, This is
my body, which is given for you, this do, this do in remembrance
of me. Likewise also the cup after supper
saying this cup is the new testament, the new covenant in my blood
which is shed for you, this do in remembrance of me. I hear
two simple words, this do, this do. Not something else, this
do. Not all the paraphernalia that's
been added to this supper, but this do, this simple act, do. Take the bread, break it, bless
it, and eat it. Take the wine, bless it, and
drink it. This do. And he said this do
in remembrance of me. He didn't say this do as a sacrifice
to be saved. He didn't say this do as a means
of disciplining the church. I've heard men say, well, we
discipline our church around the Lord's table. Christ didn't
say that. He said, this do in remembrance of me, for no other
reason. He didn't say make a sacrament
of it. He didn't say make a means of discipline the church around
it. He didn't say, this do as an indication of church unity.
He said, this do in remembrance of me. Why can't we do what he
said? Why do we feel that we are so
much smarter than God that we have to make it elaborate, impressive,
ceremonial? This do in remembrance of me. He didn't say this do to show
your worthiness. You have known. This do in remembrance
of me. Did you get it? Did you get it? If you can get hold of that,
you can understand this table, and you can tell your children
about it. This, too, in remembrance of me, what do I remember? I
remember who He is. I didn't say who He was. I said
who He is. Never use the word was in reference
to our Lord. I hear preachers say, when the
Lord Jesus was on the earth, He's here now. I remember who He is. I remember
who He is. I remember why He came to this
earth. That's what I'm remembering tonight. I'm remembering that
He came to this earth so that His Father could be just and
justify me. That's why He came to this earth.
I remember He came to this earth because the Father, back in the
councils of eternity, gave Him a people called His sheep, His
brethren, His jewels, His church, His body. And he came down here
to redeem. And he said, of all that my Father
giveth me, I won't lose a one. I'm going to raise every one
of them up at the last day. He came down here on a mission.
And when he finished that mission, he said to the Father, I'll finish
the work you gave me to do. And when he suffered on that
cross, he cried so that the whole universe could hear him. It's
finished! And all of them said, lift up
your heads, O ye gates, and the King of glory is coming home.
Who is this King of glory? The Lord strong and mighty, the
Lord mighty in battle, the Lord victorious. Sit down, my son,
on my right hand, till I make thine enemies thy footstool.
He's a satisfied Savior. I remember who He is. I remember
why He came. I remember where He is now. And
in memory of his cross and shame, I take this supper in his name. This juice of grape and flower
of wheat my outward man doth drink and eat. Oh, may my inward
man be fed with better wine and better bread. May thy pure flesh
and precious blood supply my soul with eternal food. I thank thee, Lord. who died
for me. Oh, may I live and reign with
thee." And then the Apostle Paul took it up in 1 Corinthians 11. The Apostle Paul, the Lord's
appointed, the Lord's appointed apostle to the Gentiles, wrote
to the church in 1 Corinthians 11, verse 23, he said, For I have received of the Lord
that which I delivered unto you. I delivered it unto you. That
the Lord Jesus, the same night in which he was betrayed, took
bread. And when he had given thanks,
he break it, and he said, Take, eat. This is my body, which is
broken for you. This do, this do, in remembrance
of me. After the same manner also he
took the cup, and when he had sucked, saying, This cup is the
New Testament in my blood, this do ye, as often as you drink
it in remembrance of me. For as often as you eat this
bread and drink this cup, you do show, you do show to your
friends, to your family, to yourself, to your God. You do show your
faith in and confidence in and trust in and rest in the Lord's
death till it comes. Wherefore, because of the great
significance, tremendous importance, it's not a time to trifle. Whosoever
shall eat this bread and drink this cup of the Lord unworthily,
not that any of us are worthy, but in an unworthy fashion shall
be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. But let a man examine
himself. What are you examining yourself for? To see if you're
without sin? You'd never come. To see if you're perfectly holy
in the flesh? You'd never come. To see if you're
better than you were last week? You'd never come. Examine yourself
to see that you discern and enter into and believe in and know
something about what he's talking about. And that God has done
a work of grace in your heart. For whosoever shall eat this
bread and drink this cup of the Lord unworthily in a traveling
way, in a traditional way, just as a custom or a responsibility
or a duty or seeking to find in it some salvation. You'll
be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord, but let a man examine
himself, and so let him eat. And so let him eat of that bread
and drink of that cup. May God bless you as you receive
the bread and the wine tonight. Bread of heaven on Thee I feed,
For Thy flesh is meat indeed. Ever may my soul be fed, With
this truth and living bread, day by day with strength supplied,
through the blood of him who died. Vine of heaven, thy blood
supplies, This blessed thought of sacrifice, Tis Thy Word my
healing give, To Thy cross I'll look and live, Thou my life,
O let me be. Through the grass and fields
I'll be,