In the Christian Church, I think that the
Church has suffered greatly for the absence of
Jewish believers in its midst.
I'm even pained by the name Judaism in
Christianity, because I know there's one God, one
faith, one Messiah, one salvation, one way.
And the word Christianity has become so odious
to Jewish people for historical reasons that I
have on my own card printed, Messianic Judaism
according to the Scriptures.
John Grace said that we're all believers in
Messianic Judaism according to the Scriptures.
And if you knew what the Jewish Passover
represented, and the Jews knew what the Christian
Easter represented, and it all comes out of
this one table, how reconciled we would be
in that one faith.
So I'm grateful for this opportunity tonight, although
I'm an inadequate instrument to show this, and
my own Jewish background was spotty and incomplete,
and you know from my testimony that I
was an atheist until six years ago, and
went only to the most mechanical forms of
Jewish life.
But I became a Jew the day that
God saved me.
And so I want to ask God's blessing
on this table, and that He'll really break
this.
I'm going to ask that Jesus Himself will
preside over this Passover table, because it's the
Father of the house that presides over the
Passover table.
What could be more precious than the same
Jesus who presided over this table, that last
Passover will preside for us by His Spirit
tonight, and break to us the deep spiritual
meanings of the things that we have laid
out here.
I want you to join your heart with
me now, and let's look to God for
this blessing.
Precious Holy God, You're wonderful.
We don't have words for You, but our
hearts cry out to You, Lord God.
We praise You.
That You're a living God, Lord, that we
can't find words to express our gratitude.
And that You kind of descended, Lord, through
ourselves and out of our sins, out of
all the sins that would be greeting and
bringing us into a life that's holy.
We don't have words for that.
It's so much better than religion, it's life.
You're the author of life, the author of
redemption, who made it possible by Your own
body to come tonight by Thy Spirit, Lord,
and open the meaning of this Passover table.
We invite You, Lord, to take charge by
Thy Spirit.
Please be blessed by people, and imprint upon
their hearts and their consciousness the meaning of
this Supper, Lord God, this Lord's Supper, this
Passover table, that every time they take the
communion from this night forward, that they'll take
it in a deeper way, with a richer
understanding than ever before they've known.
Touch their hearts, O Thine Jewish people, and
do all tonight that pleases Thee.
So is all, so know Thee not.
In Jesus' name we ask it.
Amen.
Some people have been asking me about this
book that I've mentioned.
I'm so happy to talk about it, because
I think it's the most explosive book that
could ever be offered to Jewish people, and
not Jews only, but secular people and modern
people and intellectuals who cannot believe.
This book is the extended journal that I
carried for 14 months in the year that
God saved me 60 years ago.
It's a fantastic account that God has taken
them in.
There won't be a skeptical Jew who will
be able to pick that book up and
put it down, and finish reading it and
say that this is a contrived story, or
this is just a piece of awesomeness written
by men.
It's full of the power and the Spirit
of God.
We have some literature, some cards right by
the table here, addressed to the publisher.
You can take one or several of these
and send them in.
You'll be informed when the book is available,
there's a little print slip that describes the
book.
I gave a testimony the other night, and
I have several copies of a transcribed version
of this testimony, which I gave in Jerusalem,
a night in which 25 Jews were saved
across the street from the place where I
was saved, at the King Hotel.
That was printed up in this edition.
I don't have too many copies, and I'm
just going to ask those people to take
them, who have a Jewish friend that they
want to give this to.
And then some have asked about what organization
I work for, the American Board of Commissions
to the Jews, founded by an Orthodox rabbi
75 years ago.
And it was God who opened up the
meaning of this Passover supper, and through that
spiritual insight that I'll relate to you tonight.
We have some brochures about that work on
the table also, and then a few copies
of the magazine which we publish monthly.
Let's open up our Bibles to the 12th
chapter of the book of Exodus.
You read the biblical background of this great
saga, the great story of redemption, which God
worked out in the history of the Jewish
people.
Fantastic type, a forecast of a spiritual redemption
to come for all mankind.
You know how the Jews were groaning in
bondage in Egypt, and even as our brethren
reminded us this afternoon, the whole of nature
is groaning and yearning for that redemption, that
final redemption of God when we'll come into
that utter and complete freedom in Him, of
which the Passover is a very deep symbolic
suggestion.
Let's look at the 12th chapter of Exodus
then.
And God had raised up an instrument through
Moses to deliver his people, and the Lord
spoke unto Moses in Aaron in the land
of Egypt, saying, This month shall be unto
you the beginning of months.
It shall be the first month of the
year to you.
Speaking unto all the congregation of Israel, saying,
In the tenth day of this month they
shall take to them every man a lamb,
according to the house of their fathers, a
lamb for house.
And the fifth birth your lamb shall be
without blemish, a male of the fourth year
you shall take it out from the sheep
or from the goats, and you shall keep
it until the fourteenth day of the same
month, and the holy symbol of the congregation
of Israel shall kill it in the evening.
And they shall take of the blood and
strike it on the two side posts and
on the upper doorposts of the houses wherein
they shall eat it.
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 boil it
over with water, but roast with fire its
head with its legs, and with the inward
parts thereof.
And you shall let nothing of it remain
until the morning, and that which remains of
it until the morning you shall burn with
fire.
And thus shall you eat it, with your
loins girded, your shoes on your feet, and
your stamp in your hand, and you shall
eat it in haste.
It is the Lord's Passover.
For I will pass through the land of
Egypt this night, and will smite all the
firstborn of the land of Egypt, both man
and beast, and against all the gods of
Egypt I will execute judgment.
I am the Lord.
And the blood shall be to you for
a token upon the houses where you are,
and when I see the blood I will
pass over you, and the plague shall not
be upon you to destroy you when I
smite the land of Egypt.
And this day shall be unto you for
a memorial, and you shall keep it a
feast to the Lord throughout your generations.
You shall keep it a feast by an
ordinance forever.
Let's for a quick moment look at some
of these scriptures.
God sought this occasion so utterly significant that
he made this the first of months, the
beginning of the calendar for the Jewish people.
This comes in the April of our year,
Nissan, in the Hebrew calendar.
It's the springtime.
It's the time of birth and the time
of new things.
It's the time of life coming out of
death.
And notice that they should take a lamb
in its first year and the prime of
its life, in other words, a lamb without
blemish, a male, and you shall keep it
until the fourteenth day of the same month.
It shall be chastened on the tenth day
and cut to the fourteenth day.
Then shall it be slain.
For four days it should be kept on
public observation that if there be any fault
in that lamb, if there be any defect,
any stock or any blemish, it cannot be
used.
It is on the tenth day that Jesus
made a triumphant entry into Jerusalem and on
the fourteenth day that he suffered his crucifixion.
For four days he was on public view
and he said to his accusers, which of
you convicts me of sin?
And also by Jewish reckoning any portion of
a day is considered a whole day and
any portion of a year is considered a
whole year.
We know that the public ministry of Jesus
was three and a half years or by
Jewish reckoning four years.
For four years the lamb of God was
on public view that if there be any
defect or spot or blemish found in him
he could not be this perfect lamb of
atonement.
And God said that we should take of
the blood and strike it on the two
side posts of their homes and the lentils.
The Jewish people actually made the first sign
of the cross and the meaning of this
is lost even to this day because the
doorstep of the homes in which they lived
were hollowed by the passing of feet.
And the blood, we're told, was poured into
this recess and the hyssop, this common green
plant, was dipped in, down and lifted up
in the middle cuts and in the two
side posts.
So the Jew actually made the sign of
the cross with the blood of this blemishless
lamb.
And then they were told to eat it,
waste totally with all of its ingot parts
thereof.
Not like some of us today who pick
at the lamb that shows us parts that
please us but shrink from consuming it entire.
And that lamb was to be consumed as
pilgrims with our feet swabbed and our staffs
and our hands girded for a great journey.
You see the tremendous significance that God has
written into this historical event not just with
Jewish people but for believers throughout every generation
unto our own.
When I see the blood, God said, I
will pass over you.
And this feast should be kept as an
ordinance and memorial throughout all the generations forever.
And to this day, so is it kept
throughout Jewish communities in the entire world.
From the ultra-orthodox to Jews who have
even acknowledged that they're atheists, some form of
celebration in the home is maintained even if
it's nothing more than a simple dinner.
But tonight we're going to go through essentially
an orthodox Passover that's going to be greatly
telescoped, that you might catch some glimpse of
the service which ordinarily lasts something like till
12, 1 or even 2 in the morning.
Let's continue reading here in the 15th verse.
Seven days shall you eat of leavened bread.
Even the first day you shall put away
leaven out of your houses.
For whosoever eateth leavened bread from the first
day until the seventh day, that soul shall
be cut off from Israel.
In the 19th verse, this injunction is repeated.
Seven days shall there be no leaven found
in your houses.
For whosoever eateth that which is leavened, even
that soul shall be cut off from the
congregation of Israel.
You shall eat nothing leavened in all your
habitations shall you eat unleavened bread.
I'm a young child of God, but I've
learned at least this much.
When God repeats himself twice, I take very
special notice.
There was an abomination to eat leavened bread
in the course of this Passover celebration.
And we know that leaven is a type
of thin.
And in those days, in the making of
bread, a portion of the batter would be
left behind in some dank and damp, dark
place in the home to fester or to
ferment.
And then that would be included in the
new batch of dough that the bread would
be leavened and would rise.
When God called them out of Egypt to
begin the pilgrimage into the promised land, they
would take no leaven out of Egypt.
They would eat no leavened bread.
And the soul that would eat it should
be cut off from the house of Israel.
Then Moses called for the elders of Israel
and said unto them, draw out and take
you a lamb according to your families and
kill the Passover.
And you shall take a bunch of hyssop
and dip it in the blood that is
in the basin, strike the lintel of the
two side posts with the blood that is
in the basin, and then you shall go
out of the door of his house until
the morning.
For the Lord will pass through to smite
the Egyptians, and when he sees the blood
upon the lintel on the two side posts,
the Lord will pass over the door and
will not permit such a scourge to come
into your houses to smite you, and you
shall observe this thing for an audience to
see, one of the beautiful things that are
part of our heritage.
Traditionally, a few specks of leaven have been
left behind in some conspicuous place that the
father might have an inspection ceremony.
And sure enough, he finds on some rolling
or window sill a few conspicuous crumbs, and
he collects his tongue and shakes his head
or so with tongue and cheek, and he
takes a feather and a wooden spoon and
he very carefully sweeps each of these crumbs
into a wooden spoon, and then he has
a predicament.
What do you do now with this leaven
that's in the spoon and the feather which
is contaminated?
You can't simply throw it in the wastebasket
or the garbage.
It would be in the house, and there
cannot be leaven in the house.
You can't open the door and give it
a toss or feel it, a gust of
wind will blow back and you have a
single speck.
So traditionally, in Europe, where there were ghettos
of Jewish people, isolated communities, a fire was
lit, and the youngest son would be sent
with the wooden spoon and the feather and
the few crumbs in that napkin to take
it out and to deposit that last vestige
of leaven in that fire.
Then was the house set for the celebration
of the great Passover.
The last function that the wife had after
which the husband would take over and conduct
the entire Passover was the lighting of the
Sabbath candle.
You took your Jewish mother lighting these candles
as I've seen my mother do Friday evening
after Friday evening through year after year.
I don't know what these gestures mean and
I don't think my mother knows, but she's
seen her mother do it and her mother
has seen her mother do it.
They sort of go like this and then
hold their heads in their hands and pray
a benediction over the candles inviting the Queen
of the Sabbath into the home.
Then the wife sits and then the father
takes over.
In Orthodox homes, the Jewish father puts on
a kittel.
I've got one here tonight.
It's a white robe and it's a symbol
of the father's priestly role in the home.
You know, it's interesting that the Passover is
the one occasion in the Jewish calendar where
the deepest aspect of Jewish religion is brought
into the home aside from the weekly Sabbath.
And signal on our quote, Christian life how
much of that which is deeply spiritual is
actually brought into our homes and made a
family celebration.
There are reasons why I believe that this
Passover ought to be observed by not just
Jews, but Gentiles who have become Jews through
the Spirit once a year.
The father has done his kittel, his priestly
robe, and then there's a hat that he
puts on called a mitre.
I don't have one with me tonight, but
if you've seen Jewish cantors in synagogues, they
wear a white satiny hat with a tassel.
But I'm going to wear what we call
a yarmulke, a simple head covering.
You'll notice that Orthodox Jews wear this in
the synagogue and in their homes, and the
deeper Orthodox will wear this all the day,
even in the streets.
Because Jewish people believe that you shouldn't keep
your head uncovered before God.
Isn't that a precious thing?
Now everything is prepared, and the Passover celebration
will begin by the drinking of the first
cup of wine.
Ordinarily, I have a complete Passover dish here
that I don't tonight because it was lost
in the shuffle of moving.
We're making do with some items that we've
gathered.
But you picture the four significant cups of
wine that are going to be had tonight,
and the first is called the kiddush, the
cup of sanctification.
The father lifts his cup, and says to
all the members of the family, including the
children, and it's a Jewish tradition, no matter
how poor a Jewish family, that on the
Passover, that every person, the youngest to the
oldest, must have four cups of wine.
And he prays a prayer in Hebrew.
Blessed art thou, O king of the universe,
who has given us the fruit of the
vine.
And the sip is taken, and the Passover
has officially begun.
The father then washes his feet in the
bowl, ceremonial cleansing.
And then an interesting thing is done.
A sprig of parsley, or greens, which is
on this Passover seder plate is taken and
dipped into a bowl of salt water.
And every person at that table is given
a sprig of parsley dipped into salt water.
And in Jewish tradition, the green parsley represents
life, and it's life immersed in tears.
Salt water represents tears, as a symbolic remembrance
of what Jewish life has been throughout the
ages and its ages.
On this table tonight, we have three pieces
of unleavened bread.
I've got them in three napkins, each piece
separated by another white napkin.
In a wealthy Jewish home, there's a matzah
bag, which is handed down from generation to
generation, very ornamental.
But tonight we're using the simple napkins.
And at this time of the service, the
father eats his end, and he takes not
the topmost piece, nor the bottom piece, but
he withdraws the middle slice.
If you've never seen matzah, or unleavened bread,
this is it.
Notice that it's broken and pierced.
It's lined.
It's the bread of life.
It's made of pure ingredients, simple flour and
water.
And the matzah that's used for Passover is
observed by the rabbis from the time it's
wheat in the field to its milling process,
right through to the baking, that it does
not touch at any process of the way
any kind of leaven.
It's utterly pure.
And at this time, the father breaks this
bread, and one half is pushed back in,
and the other half is concealed or buried,
but first it's wrapped in a napkin, the
bread of life, broken for us, wrapped in
a shroud, and buried.
And that's to come out at the conclusion
of the meal, at a time when that
is the dessert, and it's called the efekomen.
If you ask Jewish people, why is this
observed, they can't explain.
This is just something that's been handed down
from generation to generation.
You ask, why are there only, why are
there three pieces of unleavened bread?
The traditional explanation is that one piece represents
the Kohan, the priestly family, another the Levites,
the priestly tribe, and the other all Israel,
but no one's exactly sure.
They just know that this, too, is part
of Jewish tradition.
And there was at a Passover table like
this some 75 years ago, that Leopold Cohen,
the Orthodox rabbi whom God had led to
the discovery of the Messiah, was presiding over
the Passover table at his own home.
His Jewish wife was grief-stricken, as is
my own mother to this day, that he
had received Jesus, and she was a beautiful
and faithful Jewish wife who would not turn
from her husband, but inside she was a
broken woman who could not understand how a
man who was the son of rabbis for
many generations could do this awful thing of
taking to himself that Jesus, that was the
name and the property of the Gentiles who
had brought so much persecution and oppression upon
the Jewish people through the centuries.
And that poor man, I know his frustration
because I have the same with my own
mother and my own family to explain.
But it was while he took the middle
piece and broke it that the Holy Spirit
revealed to him that these three pieces represent
the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost,
and the middle piece is the Son whose
body was broken for us and whose body
was wrapped in a burial shroud and concealed
in heaven to come out on the third
day.
Hallelujah.
There's also an onion on the table The
Jews call this the root of life and
for a good reason because the onion brings
tears.
You know, if you've heard Jewish music, you
know the tremendous plaintive quality of that music.
There's always a heartbroken element to Jewish culture
and Jewish music and Jewish writing and even
Jewish humor.
It's because we've suffered so greatly as a
people without understanding even why that had we
been obedient to the author of this Passover,
we would have been spared much.
There's also a roast egg on the table.
It's not eaten, it's really there as a
reminder of the time when the Temple stood
and sacrifices were performed.
And that's all.
This is the one, what can I say,
melancholy reminder of the Temple and the glory
of Israel.
It's also interesting that the egg is a
symbol in Easter and it's a symbol in
many cultures as a time of beginning and
new life.
And then I don't have it with me
tonight, but the last element on the table
is a shank bone of a lamb.
It's interesting that on the modern Passover table,
when the meal comes, it does not contain
lamb.
Because since the Temple has been destroyed and
since the priesthood has been dispersed, the lamb
cannot be properly sacrificed and made fit for
the Passover table.
So chicken will be eaten or turkey will
be eaten or some other meat dish.
And the only reminder of that blemished lamb
is the shank bone which is kept on
this plate.
Now it's time for the second cup of
wine.
And this cup is called the cup of
wrath or the cup of judgment.
And every person at the table takes his
cup by his plate and takes out by
his finger ten drops of wine and drops
it on his plate.
Can you see what each drop represents?
Each of the plagues that God brought against
Egypt in judgment.
Sometimes this is called the cup of praise
because they're praising God for the wonder and
the might of his salvation.
At the conclusion of the second cup, the
son, the youngest son, asks the fear of
Christ Earth.
That means the four questions.
And this is done and has been done
throughout the ages.
It's prescribed in the scriptures that when the
sons ask why is this Passover being observed,
that an explanation should be given that a
reminder should go out to every generation of
the wonder that God performed to bring us
out of bondage.
And I want to read the question which
the son plants in Hebrew at the Passover
table.
And I'm going to read this in English.
Wherefore is this night distinguished from all other
nights?
Any other night ye may eat either leavened
or unleavened bread, but on this night only
unleavened bread.
All other nights ye may eat any species
of herbs, but this night only bitter herbs.
All other nights ye do not even dip
even once, but on this night twice.
All other nights ye eat and drink either
sitting or reclined, but on this night we
all reclined.
Now you may have noticed the pillows on
these chairs.
The pillows are a symbol of freedom that
one can lounge in the eating of the
meal, and it's another reminder of having come
out of slavery and of bondage.
The references to the dipping, to the making
of a sop, refer to the compound paste
made of ground apples and nuts and raisins
mixed with wine, which is called harotos, and
it has the consistency of mortar.
That's the second piece of unleavened bread that
was broken.
At the time of the meal, a piece
is broken and given to every settlement, and
they dip into the sop, and each person
eats this paste as a reminder of when
the Jews labored to build the city of
Silesia.
There's also bitter herbs on the table, and
the rabbis say by tradition that the three
basic elements for the Passover table, the unleavened
bread, the bitter herbs, and the shank bone
of the lamb.
And the sop is taken of the bitter
herbs.
That's the second sop that they might be
reminded of the bitterness of bondage.
Now it's interesting how the son is answered.
Because we were slaves unto Pharaoh in Egypt
and the eternal hour of God, brought us
forth then to the mighty hand and an
outstretched arm.
And if the more praise left that he
had not brought us forth, our ancestors from
Egypt, winning our children and our children's children,
would still be in bondage to the Pharaohs
in Egypt.
Therefore, even if we were all of us
wise, all of us men of knowledge and
of understanding, all of us learned in the
law, it nevertheless would be incumbent upon us
to speak of the departure from Egypt, and
all of us who speak of the departure
from Egypt are accounted praiseworthy.
Now, by tradition, four sons are spoken of
in the Passover.
There's a wise son, a wicked son, a
sinful son, and a son who has not
yet come to the age of understanding.
I think it's time to find more information
for what these four sons represent.
But I want to mention the wicked son.
What says the wicked son?
By the way, I'm reading from the Haggadah.
That means the narrative or the story.
Every Passover table will have copies of the
Haggadah.
This is a very inexpensive version.
Some of them will be very elaborate.
They'll be bound in silver, and they'll be
handed down also, extremely early, generation to generation.
What says the wicked son?
The whole of the Haggadah has gone through.
That's what takes till 12, 1 o'clock,
or 2 o'clock in the morning.
What mean you by this service?
Why is he wicked?
Because he doesn't say, what do we mean
by this service?
What mean you by this service?
As if he has nothing to do with
it.
Therefore, as he considered by tradition, wicked.
By the word you, it is clear he
does not include himself, and thus has withdrawn
himself from the community.
It is therefore proper to report upon him
by saying, this is done because of what
the Eternal did for me when I went
forth from Egypt for me, and not for
him, for had he been there, he would
not have thought himself worthy to be redeemed.
This is not a celebration to remind us
of what our forefathers experienced, but that we
should see ourselves being brought forth by the
hand of God, out of bondage, into the
promised land.
The Haggadah has gone through the whole accounting
of God's marvelous deliverance, and then the elements
are pushed aside and the meal is brought
forth.
And it's a festive occasion, and the hours
that are taken in the eating of it,
and as I mentioned in the service the
other night, that eating has become a gastronomic
experience for modern people.
It's selling something in our face and getting
away from the table as quickly as we
can.
But in biblical times, it was the breaking
of bread.
It was a time of fellowship.
It was something to be done at leisure.
The eating part was only incidental.
The sharing part was tremendously significant.
Time of real fellowship, of a real cordiality,
and you do it at great leisure.
And so, two hours might be taken for
the eating of this meal, and the juice
never comes in, but it's the dishes which
he's prepared, and it really is a very
joyous occasion.
And now the meal has been eaten, and
we can resume the service.
It's time for the third cup of wine,
and I want now to turn to the
New Testament Scriptures that we might see in
the accounts given in the Gospel of Luke,
in the 22nd chapter, how
Jesus himself traditionally responded as a Jew in
the Passover which he was observing with his
disciples.
Notice the 19th and 20th verses of the
22nd chapter, the Gospel of Luke, And he
took bread and gave thanks, and broke it,
and gave unto them, saying, This is my
body, which is given for you, this do
in remembrance of me.
Which bread is it that Jesus now chose
to break and to share?
This is the time for the attic homeman
to come out of hiding, out of burial,
and usually some kind of a game is
made of it.
The youngest son is sent to find that
he receives a reward, comes out of hiding
and out of his shroud, and now this
is the bread that Jesus took and broke
and gave to his disciples, and said, This
is my body, which is given for you,
this do in remembrance of me.
Likewise also the cup after supper, saying, This
cup is the New Testament in my blood,
which is shed for you.
And this is the time in the traditional
Passover service for the drinking of the third
cup.
The first was the cup of benediction, the
second was the cup of judgment, and the
third is the cup of redemption.
And Jesus says, This cup is my blood
given for you.
This is the New Testament, sealed in my
blood, given for you, the cup of redemption.
Jewish people are drinking of that third cup
and eating of this bread year after year
without any cognizance that it's what represents the
Messiah who has already come.
Let's turn to 1 Corinthians, the 11th chapter,
and our Jewish brother Paul beautifully commenting, For
I have received of the Lord, after many
of these words are off all the times
that we have taken communion, that which also
I delivered unto you, that the Lord Jesus,
the same night in which he was betrayed,
took bread, and when he had given thanks,
he broke it and said, Take, eat.
This is my body, which is broken for
you.
This be in remembrance of me.
After the same manner also he took the
cup, when he had supped, after the completion
of the meal, the third cup of redemption,
saying, This cup is the New Testament in
my blood.
This be, as often as you drink it,
in remembrance of me.
Then we come to a fourth cup, and
it's probably the most melancholy cup taken in
the order of the service.
It's called the cup of Elijah.
And if we had a properly equipped table,
you would have seen a whole setting set
aside and unused with a cup standing by
it, and that seat is left for the
prophet Elijah, the forerunner of the Messiah.
And in this moment in the Seder, the
son is sent to open the front door,
and everybody rises, taking the fourth cup in
their hand, which is called Elijah's cup, and
they look to the open door for the
prophet Elijah to come in.
And they've done this year after year after
year, generation after generation, century after century, and
no one comes.
And then the father will say something like,
Perhaps next year.
There's always a moment of extreme disappointment.
It's a poignant moment.
The Jewish hope of the Messiah that perhaps
this Pesach, this Passover, when the door is
opened, in will come the prophet Elijah, or
perhaps even the Messiah himself, and take the
seat that's been left for him throughout all
these years, and complete the redemption that was
begun thousands of years before in that first
Pesach.
But alas and alack, again as before, no
one comes, the door is closed, the cup
is drunk, and then there's a cup of
praise, some psalms are sung, and the ceremony
is concluded.
The precious symbols
that we celebrate want to remind us tonight
there's no bread of life that isn't first
subjected to the crushing experience that grain of
wheat has to die that it might bear
fruit.
The two great symbols, the crushed grape and
the broken wheat, ground to give life and
redemption unto the multitude.
And where to take these as symbols and
as continual reminders that this is our Lord's
Supper.
And I think if he would have of
us that we should make of our bodies
something broken, that we should be willing also
to be crushed and burst, that life which
has been invested in us might go forth
unto the world.
What a fitting way to ask the question
how is it that my Jewish people who
have sought so long for the Messiah and
have gone through the little ceremony that I've
described tonight could not see in these beautiful
symbols which God has written into their deepest
experience in their own homes the Messiah Jesus
Christ.
I think that the Church of God will
have to give answer for the failure of
the Jewish people to recognize in the name
of Jesus the Messiah of whom all these
things speak.
As that wife of that rabbi was astounded
at the act of her husband in my
own little birthday so are countless millions of
Jews completely alienated from the name of Jesus
never occurring to them that 1900 years ago
one came who is the perfect fulfillment of
all that he suggests.
God has given us the joyous responsibility and
obligation to bring understanding and light into Jewish
lives that we might explain to them what
these very things mean which they really observe
that they might feel the joy of the
discovery that that Jewish wife experienced 75 years
ago and which I am confident my mother
is going to experience before she passes from
this life.
I think it would be a wonderful thing
for us once a year we who are
believers Jew and Gentile alike to conduct an
annual spring cleaning.
You know that Paul said that a little
leaven leaveneth the whole lump.
God twice warned us that if we so
much as touch the slightest leaven we should
be cut off from the family of Israel.
We ought to start that cleansing and start
from the attic of our minds and go
through the nook and cranny of this of
yours the doors, the dark and secret places
of our lives and go into the basements
even and cleanse a yearly stocktaking of the
drops and the leaven that's accumulated in our
lives and cleanse it.
We ought to remind ourselves every year by
the taking of this bread and the making
of a sop dipped into the bitter herb
of the bondage from which God has delivered
us.
And I tell you people and as you
know there's no bondage more cruel than that
lash which is silent and there's no tyrant
more despicable than that tyrant Satan and there
are countless millions of Jews and Gentiles alike
throughout the world who are groaning and building
cities for him who do not know the
redemption that's available to them in Jesus Christ.
And we will be able to experience it
and then brought out of Egypt once yearly
to celebrate this glorious Passover to remind ourselves
of the joy and the treasure the prize
of our lived salvation.
There are a lot of us who are
being brought out but as the scripture says
he brought us out but he might bring
us in and many are still stumbling in
the wilderness and have not come into the
fullness of the promised land.
Some of us instead of a vibrant living
Christ in our lives have like the Jewish
people on their Passover table a parched prophetic
shempoem of a lamb.
I think God would have us to take
spiritual inventory tonight and use the things that
he's described to us by his Spirit to
examine the condition of our own lives that
we might see the Lamb of God anew
and understand the meaning of his sacrifice for
our redemption.
He brought us out that he might bring
us in.
My own heart and understanding tells me that
the plagues are coming again.
Can you comment on how the sermon that
we've seen has evolved from that?
We've been
turning out song books to 98 at the
cross of the plagues that are coming upon
our world.
Campuses set afire.
Civilizations broken.
The oppressions are coming one after another.
Mankind is going to be offered a choice
of one of two cups.
The cup of God's wrath that's a bitter
cup or the cup of God's redemption.
Such messengers of his salvation that this cup
of redemption will be readily received by a
dying mankind.
I'm going to ask you to pray this
at the cross.
Let's sing this lovingly tonight mindful of the
salvation that God has wrought in our lives.
And I'm going to ask anybody who's in
this audience tonight view of Lent how they
like who wants to partake of their first
Lord's Supper to come to this table.
To someone who wants to experience the redemption
of God to come to this table.
What could be a more glorious entry into
the kingdom of God than to receive from
the master himself from his own body and
his own blood the symbol of salvation and
return to his feet purged, cleansed, made new
child of God saved out of the aegis
of your life out of the bondage of
a cruel task master to be freed sexually.
Shall we sing at the cross salvation of
God