Actually, Exodus chapter 12 is a tremendous study
to me, one of the greatest, I suppose,
in all the Bible on communion.
And I wanted to look at that tonight
as it was communion, and to study it
and just as a study to prepare our
hearts for communion.
So let me read to you out of
it, communion, I mean communion chapter 12.
See it's Exodus chapter 12.
And the Lord spake unto Moses and Aaron
in the land of Egypt, saying, This month
shall be unto you the beginning of months.
It should be the first month of the
year to you.
Speak ye unto all the congregation of Israel,
saying, In the tenth day of this month
they shall take to every man a lamb,
according to the house of their fathers, a
lamb for an house.
And if the household be too little for
the lamb, let him and his neighbor next
unto his house take it according to the
number of souls.
Every man according to his eating shall make
your count for the lamb.
Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male
of the first year, ye shall take it
out from the sheep or from the goats.
And ye shall keep it until the fourteenth
day of the same month.
The whole assembly of the congregation of Israel
shall kill it in the evening.
And they shall take the blood, and they
shall strike it on the two posts, and
on the upper doorposts of the houses wherein
they shall eat it.
And they shall eat the flesh that night,
roast with fire, of unleavened bread, and with
bitter herbs they shall eat it.
Eat not of it raw, nor soddened at
all with water, but roast with fire, its
head and its legs with the pertinence thereof.
And ye shall let nothing remain till the
morning, and that which remaineth of it in
the morning ye shall burn with fire.
And thus ye shall eat it, with your
loins girted, your shoes on your feet, your
staff in your hand.
And ye shall eat it in haste, for
it is the Lord's Passover.
For I will pass through the land of
Egypt this night, and will smite the firstborn
in 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 unto you a
token on the houses wherein 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
memorial.
And ye shall keep it a feast unto
the Lord throughout your generations.
And ye shall keep it a feast and
ordinance forever.
Let's pray and we'll study it.
Father, we thank you for your word.
And Lord, we thank you that it's so
much just about you, obviously.
How simple can we be?
But yet, Lord, it's all about you.
And we ask that as we look at
it tonight and we see this wonderful story
of the Lamb, ultimately speaking of the Lamb
of God.
Lord, we pray that we would see you
in it.
And that message, Lord, that you have for
us.
That message of love, of forgiveness, of cleansing,
of newness.
Lord, that it would be to each one
of us, each one of our hearts, each
one of our lives, whatever we need of
you tonight, that we would receive it.
For, Father, we ask it in Jesus' name.
Amen.
Well, the Bible is, of course, a book
primarily about Jesus Christ.
I think that's a very fair statement to
make, obviously.
Jesus once told the Pharisees in John 5,
he said, you search the Scriptures for in
them you think you have eternal life, but
they are they that speak of me.
And the Old Testament, it's all about Jesus
Christ.
That was the Scriptures, obviously, that he was
referring to.
It's all about Jesus.
And it all points to him in one
way or another.
He is the fulfillment of all of it.
It's where it all centers in and around
him.
He, of course, is none other as John
the Baptist when he saw Jesus.
And he realized there who he was.
What, of course, did he say?
Behold, the Lamb of God that takes away
the sins of the world.
And now for centuries they had been slain
many lambs.
Millions and millions of them, no doubt, had
been slaughtered.
The blood of lambs had been flowing out
of Jerusalem for many years there at the
Passover feast every year as the children of
Israel would gather from all over the world
to come to be there for that.
And there, of course, all that pointed to
Jesus Christ.
And so the wonderful thing is we are
looking here at Exodus chapter 12, there's no
question of whom we speak.
It's all about Jesus.
And it's a beautiful and a graphic and
a wonderful explanation of the Passover lamb and
what Jesus has done for us.
And so as we look at it and
prepare our own hearts for communion, may we
be able to understand fresh and maybe deeper
and richer the wonderful message of the atonement
and of the power of it for our
own lives.
And here is Paul also himself said in
1 Corinthians 5, he says, Jesus Christ, He's
our Passover.
So when we are looking at this wonderful
story of the Passover, we're looking at the
work that Jesus Christ has accomplished for us.
So here as we look at it, I
want just to notice the wonderful things as
we look at it.
Here is the Lord spake unto Moses and
Aaron in the land of Egypt.
And he said, This month should be unto
you the beginning of months.
It should be the first month of the
year for you.
Here we have the children of Israel actually
be given, being given a whole new calendar,
one that they have kept ever since.
Unlike all the rest of the world, they
have their own.
But here as it's being instituted, it's interesting.
It's a wonderful thing here.
They're actually told there, it's going to be
a beginning.
As he says, this month should be unto
you the beginning of months.
Now that word beginning is one that's worth
stopping and looking at just a little bit
because it isn't just beginning as you and
I would think of it.
In the Hebrew, that word beginning, it's used
a number of times, but it's used 500,
the root word is used 598 times, translated
to shake of all things.
It's translated 91 times, chief.
349 times, head.
73 times, top.
14 times, beginning.
10 times, captain.
Twice, it's translated ruler.
Here it's translated for us, beginning.
But the suggestion here is God is telling
the children of Israel.
He says, this month should be unto you
the beginning of months.
And essentially what he is telling them is
something so awesome, something so powerful, something so
wonderful is about to happen, it's going to
absolutely shake your life.
It's not going to simply shake it, it's
going to be as if you've never lived
before.
We're going to start a brand new calendar
over this.
Everything previous is entirely gone.
You're going to have a new head, a
new chief, a new ruler, a new captain.
And here it's as if God, as he's
looking there at the children of Israel, he
says, life is going to be absolutely transformed
for you.
Now imagine again, here you are, the children
of Israel.
You've been in bondage now up to maybe,
well, not 400 years.
They'd been there for 400 years.
Exactly how long of that they'd been actually
as slaves, but for some time.
But here basically, I'm sure this generation, they
had entirely, all they'd ever known was the
whip of the Egyptian taskmaster.
One that they were being used to build
their Egyptian treasure cities.
And here they'd only known a life of
bondage, a life of slavery, a life of
weakness.
They had other rulers, they had other captains,
they had other chiefs.
Cruel, controlling, manipulative.
What they did every day was dictated by
another force, another power.
They told them how they'll live, where they'll
live, what they'll do, when they'll do it.
Their entire life was governed by another power,
another life outside of themselves.
And then one day, something happens that is
about to absolutely shake their life.
Here God tells them, he says, Moses, go
tell them to get ready for a shaking.
A brand new shaking is gonna happen and
it is gonna set up an entire new
personal government within their life.
A new ruler, a new king, a new
chief, a new captain.
The past is going to be totally obliterated.
It's going to be absolutely gone, wiped out.
Everything you've done in the past, it's going
to be annihilated, it's going to be gone.
So much so, it's the beginning of months.
Who you were, what you did, when you
did it, why you did it, how you
did it, don't worry about it.
This shaking up is gonna be so complete,
it's gonna be as if you never existed
before.
We're starting a whole new calendar, a new
world, a new life.
All for you.
Here is God as he's looking at them.
I don't, I don't think you can overstate
the force of this.
The magnitude of it, the wonder of it.
Because when we're talking about communion, I suppose
one of the greatest texts in all the
world of a communion is, there ought to
be a great time where God comes to
us and invites us to his shaking.
A time there, he says, here's a new,
here's your captain, here's your chief, here's your
king.
Here's the one that's to be installed afresh
within your own heart, in your own life.
How wonderful it is.
Again, if you could just imagine a person
who's been a slave their entire life.
Maybe there's some here that, that you feel
like your own life, it's just been in
slavery.
Much of what you do, you look at
it, and it's as if another force.
Something there almost wicked, it overtakes you in
a sense.
Some power there that seems to dictate your
life.
And the hateful thoughts, the misery of life,
the behavior, the thought life, the struggle in
relationships, the moral failures, the relational failures.
A life there to where the thing, like
Paul said, the good that I would, I
don't.
But the very thing I hate, I continuously
do it.
Again and again and again.
We've lost friends, lost relationships, paid a price.
And you look there and realize, why does
this happen?
And here there's something that all of a
sudden to that person, God comes along and
he offers them communion.
He offers them something where he wants to
say, I don't really care about your story.
I don't care about where you've been.
I don't care about who did it, when
they did it, and how you did it,
and who you did it with, and how
often you did it.
You know, we live in a day and
age, I've never understood it so much, but
there's so much psychology in the Christian world
these days.
So much of this stuff oftentimes, where people
have got to go back and try to
figure out what happened to them, and why
it happened, and you know, and why did
their mother do what they did, you know,
or didn't do what she didn't do, or
should have done more, or something there that
happened to them, and you know, why their
friends or their family, or why did this
happen to me, and they're going back searching
through, trying to figure out some taskmaster back
there that messed up their life, so they
can put the blame on them.
And I'll tell you though, there's one thing
to me that is so powerful.
I'm not saying there aren't terrible things that
happen in life, they do.
They're devastating things.
They're sometimes overwhelming things.
They're things of which humanly, they look absolutely,
the most terrible things in all the world
have happened to people, and continuously sometimes, but
here the wonderful thing that the Bible wants
us to know about the cross of Jesus
Christ, and about communion, is it is powerful
of all the things that have ever happened
to a human life, in all of its
life, there is one thing that is more
powerful, and that overcomes all of it, and
it's the cross of Christ.
It's something there where a person can come,
and he can shake up everything, and he
can say, you're new.
I'll lead you out of that.
I don't care where you've been.
I want to know if you want to
know where you're going.
And you want a new life, and you
want to go on.
That's what's happening here.
He looks there, and he says, don't worry
about where you've been.
I'll blot it out.
You bring your calendar if you want to,
and where you've been, and what you've done,
and who you've done it with, and all
your excuses.
All we're going to do is destroy it,
and we're starting a brand new calendar, everybody.
And it'd be a wonderful thing if every
one of us realized that's what communion is.
It's the Lord coming and saying, let me
shake you, let me blot it away, let
me be done with it.
That's what it's all about.
It's a new beginning.
I believe when Jesus turned and told the
disciples, he says, you do this often in
remembrance of me.
I don't think it was because he had
this sentimental thing about his pain.
He said, I want you to remember how
terrible it was for me.
I want you to remember how painful, what
I went through for you.
Jesus never did anything for himself or had
much to say for his own self.
When he said, do something in remembrance of
me, it's because I need it.
I need his power.
I need his work often.
Not just once, not just twice, but I
need it often.
To have a fresh shaking, a fresh new
calendar, a fresh new work of him within
my heart and within my life.
And you want to know how is this
to happen?
He says, I mean, what a phenomenal thing
to come to somebody and say, we're going
to give you a brand new calendar, a
brand new life.
Well, he goes on in verse three.
And he says, speaking unto the congregation of
Israel, saying, in the tenth day of this
month, they shall take to every man a
lamb according to the house of their fathers,
a lamb for an house.
And if the household be too little for
the lamb, let he and his neighbor next
to his house take it according to the
number of the souls.
Every man according to his eating shall make
your count for the lamb.
Your lamb shall be without blemish.
Your male of the first year, you should
take it out from the sheep or from
the goats.
And ye shall keep it until the fourteenth
day of the same month.
The whole assembly of the congregation of Israel
shall kill it in the evening.
Notice there, by the way, it's just one
and one.
God says he shall kill it.
There's thousands of lambs and goats being offered,
but God just sees one.
From his perspective in heaven, he's seen the
lamb that was slain before the foundation of
the world.
That's in the midst of all this wonderful
thing.
But here is the Lord looks at them.
Notice there, he tells them, he says in
verse four, the household, it'd be too little
for the lamb.
He says, you're going to take a lamb.
And he, I suppose one of the first
thing that kind of comes out to me,
though, is he says there that if the
household is too little for the lamb, what
a wonderful thing.
Think about that for a moment.
The lamb, first of all, it's for the
home.
It's there.
I mean, it's a home there where there's,
you know, a husband and a wife or
there's children.
And like all homes, all the things, the
selfishness that come in and anger and hostility
and confusion and bitterness.
And you're trying to run all your lives
and trying to establish who you think you
are and all of our little struggles and
selfishnesses that can creep in so much.
But here, there, he looks there and he
says, this isn't just for an individual.
This is for your entire home.
This is something there that you're to share
together in.
Not just even individually.
Oftentimes there we see people that maybe a
husband, he knows he's a Christian.
She knows she's a Christian, but in the
sense of where they together.
Know what it is to let the lamb
be something there that penetrates their entire heart
and their entire home together.
Something there that's to cleanse their life, to
cleanse their home.
And it's absolutely notice it's sufficient there for
the house.
It's never an issue.
Never says, by the way, if the lamb's
too little for the house, go get a
backup lamb, you know, or something.
He says, no, if the household's too little
for the lamb, there'll always be enough forgiveness
for any home.
Whatever the problem is, whatever the difficulty is,
however long it's gone.
It's like God is just looking if I
could just get the family, if I could
just get the home, if I could just
get the people to the cross, if I
could just get them to take their eyes
off of who they were and who the
other one is and what they did and
what was done unto them and all of
this stuff that can pile up over the
years.
All of these things in a home of
a family of slaves.
All been slaves to something else for years.
God knows it and he cares and he
loves them.
And he says, the answer here is just,
I want you all to set your eyes
not on each other, not on your past.
I want you to set your eyes upon
the lamb, the power of the lamb, the
sufficiency of the lamb.
And there, as he looks at it, the
power of the lamb to cleanse, to forgive.
And here, as he looks at it there,
it's obviously there, as it says in verse
five, your lamb should be without blemish, a
male of the first year.
He shall take it out from the sheep
or from the goats.
But here is it's something there as he
looks, obviously a picture of the lamb of
God without blemish, without any sin, without any
failure.
Looking there, just the sight of staring in
a sense at Jesus.
How many homes, how many families, maybe even
here, just need to know what it is
to come and to truly sit before the
lamb and say, shake us up.
Shake us up.
Help us to throw away the calendar and
throw away the past and throw away the
record books and throw away our file cabinets
that we've got on each other.
I don't know how often it is, I'll
sit down with people and you know, and
you start there when there's a marriage that's
in trouble.
There's a home that's in trouble and the
love is and doesn't flow and it isn't
free.
And it's gotten clogged up.
It's usually got clogged up with record keeping.
It's usually all these files that people have
that just clog everything up to where you
what so and so did and when they
did it and I remember that boy and
I'm not going to have that done to
me again.
How stupid do you think I am?
You know, and then something to where you
learn to protect yourself.
And here is a place where God just
comes and he says, gaze upon the lamb.
See him in his love.
How many homes, how many families, how many
marriages.
I think many times I even see Christians,
they themselves personally know the cross, they know
the lamb.
And but it's separate.
It isn't together.
We're in their home and then with their
family, with the children where they know what
it is to say, God, cleanse us all,
shake us all up.
Be right here in the midst of all
of us.
We want this.
You know, it's interesting in first Corinthians, Paul
makes a reference there in first Corinthians of
there are many sick among you, not discerning
the Lord's body.
And while he is specifically speaking there of
physical illness, I believe he's also speaking, not
just a physical illness.
I think there's a lot of illnesses in
homes and illnesses and families and illnesses between
husband and wife and difficulties and you know,
and weaknesses that have crept in just because
we don't discern also the power of the
cross, the magnitude of the cross to where
we can come and look there.
It ought to be that I'll tell you
whatever sins anybody ever did to me.
And and I'd like to think they did
a lot.
You know, it's don't everybody likes to think
you've been sinned against a lot.
That's why I'm so messed up.
We want somebody to blame for that, I
suppose.
But when we also realize no one will
ever, ever sin against me as much as
I have been forgiven, as much as I,
no one could possibly even do it.
I've broken every commandment there is.
When Jesus makes it clear in the New
Testament, what it is to steal or what
it is to lust or what it is
to covet or what it is to have
any failure at all.
I realized there as a man thinketh as
a man is in his heart, so is
he.
I realized, look at the unfaithfulness of my
heart towards God and that he still loves
me.
God told the children of Israel back in
the book of Hosea when he sent Hosea
to go out to be, you know, a
prophet to them, he says, take thee a
wife of harlotry and children of harlotry for
the land hath committed great harlotry departing from
the Lord.
Now it wasn't physical harlotry, it was spiritual.
God looked there and he says, they are
mine.
They are to have a fidelity to me
and they've gone off and they've loved others.
And God looked at it, he was as
offended as anybody that had ever had anybody
commit an adulterous relationship against them.
It broke his heart.
And when I realized I've done all this,
haven't I?
And when I stopped to think, well, you
try to find somebody that's done one thing
or another to me, but at the Mount,
I have been forgiven.
And thus there, if I am to forgive
as I have been forgiven, there's not a
person in the world I can't forgive.
They're not a person in all the world.
And when we realize, Lord, help me, I
need to see the lamb again.
I need to realize what has been done
for me.
Maybe some of you here tonight and you're
angry.
You're bitter in your marriage.
You're angry with each other.
You've been angry for years.
In fact, you've nursed it.
You've fed it.
You've been comforted in it.
You've got friends that pray for you about
it, you know, and you've got all this
stuff and yet you continue to be angry
or hostile or hurt or bitter.
Instead of just Jesus, let me see the
cross.
Let me see the magnitude of the cross.
Could you imagine a home in Egypt there
and what the slave master did and all
their struggles and all that, but all of
a sudden there's a knock on the door
and there is an entirely king, new king
there, a king of the ultimate eternal lottery.
And he says, you won.
You win in all the little debts that
everybody's got against you.
That guy owes me 50 bucks and you
took 20, you took this and all in
the family sitting there, wait a minute.
And he says, Hey, I got a billion
for you.
I think we got enough to go around.
And the wonderful thing is when I realized
his love for me, his love covers a
multitude of sins.
Now, maybe you're here tonight and your marriage
is perfect.
You're wondering what in the world is he
talking about?
You know, you woke up this morning singing
love songs to each other and made a
movie about it or something.
I don't know.
Your neighbors came over, knocked on the door
and said, would you please teach us those
songs?
We want to sing to each other too,
you know, or whatever else.
You know, your book on marriage is just
coming out and it's 10th printing.
I don't know.
Maybe so.
I'm happy for you.
I just don't want to live by you.
But the, I don't have a marriage like
that.
The, uh, my wife is coming along.
Don't get me wrong.
But the, uh, I just realized she's in
San Jose.
She might be listening tonight.
I love you, honey.
You're the sweetest one in all the world.
Anyway, I got to answer.
There's going to be some voicemails on my
cell phone when I'm done here.
But here, this is what, but God looks
here and he says, love forgive.
And he turns there and, and then he
adds to it in verse four.
He goes on.
He says, and if the household be too
little for the lamb, let him and his
neighbor next to undo his house, take it
in according to the number of the souls,
every man according to his eating.
So make your, how your, your account for
the lamb here.
He says, now, once you've got enough love,
enough cleansing, enough of this absolute shaking power,
I will share it with your neighbor.
I love them.
Let his power begin to be known there.
Not total strangers.
You go off.
Sometimes we're more bold with the, you know,
total strangers than we are with the people
next door.
You know, the guy next door, the one
with the stereo, you know, they're the, that,
that, that when the one who parks his
oil dripping car in front of your house,
you know, the guy with the yellow houses,
the blue trim and, and the pink flamingos,
he sticks in the garden there and there,
you know, that he's got there going there.
And he says, go, go next door.
Go there to your neighbor and here and
tell him about the shaking that's happening in
your life and in your marriage, in your
home, the cleansing, the newness, the power, the
chief, the ruler, the king, the captain that
has come into your life.
Don't ever worry.
If Jesus is enough for you, it will
be.
And there ought to be enough to share
of his love and of his power.
Notice also the familiarity that they were to
have with this, with the lamb tells us
there in verse three, that you, uh, uh,
that, uh, in the 10th day of the
month, you shall take every man, a lamb,
according to their house, their fathers.
In other words here out of their sheep,
they're to go out of the sheepfold and
bring in one of the lamb on the
10th day.
They're to separate them from the rest of
the flock.
And here they're actually, they bring it into
their home.
Now, as you may be aware in those
times, sheep business wasn't so much a business
as sheep were almost part of the family.
Um, you know, shepherding called the sheep by
name.
They knew the shepherd's voice and they answered
so the way they were, they weren't herded
like cattle, but they were let out here.
A shepherd wouldn't hear a voice of a
harling of a hireling.
It knew his, it knew its owner and
knew its shepherd.
But here now the shepherd was to go
out and call out of his flock, the,
you know, the youngest, the most beautiful without
spot call that beautiful young lamb out of
the flock.
And essentially now to bring it into the
home.
And then in verse six, it says, and
you shall keep it until the 14th day
of the same month.
Now, could you imagine this?
How many of you have ever came to
your family and said, I'm going to bring
home a puppy for four days.
Good luck.
You know, you bring all, you let a
puppy in the house, you're stuck for till
it's dead, basically, or you or your children
or somebody, unless you're like we were growing
up.
We got this wonderful German shepherd and then
we all got married and left with my
parents, but the 105 pounds Prince and boy
drug them everywhere.
But they brought us into the world.
They deserve everything they get for it.
But anyway, but the thing is, is that
here that for four days, they've got this
lamb in the house hanging around kids falling,
you know, in love with it.
What an attachment.
And here is you brought it home.
And for four days, it's been separated and
singled out.
And Gary, God wants there.
No question about it to me, the familiarity,
the attachment he wants to have happen.
He wants there something when it comes down
to the 14th day, by the time they
take that lamb and they kill it, that
there is something that is literally gut-wrenching.
There is something about them there that they,
that they find there.
It takes everything out of them to do
such a thing.
This is one of the most awesome events
ever.
My dad's uncle, Uncle Bill, when we were
growing up, he had a ranch and I
used to get to go up there to
hang out with him now and then in
the summers.
And I remember one time I was up
there and the way some of the ranchers
were when they came down where they would
have some of the sheep killed.
Sometimes even one rancher would go do it
for another and they would trade places in
a sense.
Here, we got to get some killed.
I'll come over and take care of it
for you.
So you didn't even have to be involved
with the death of your own sheep because
the sheep, I can remember watching this, where
there the guy comes to butcher the sheep
and here these lambs, they just line up.
And as they would just be standing there,
so trusting, so innocent, so precious about them.
And here the guy would come up with
this gun, put it right in their forehead.
The lamb would just sit there like, is
that a gun on my forehead?
You know or whatever, just look right at
it and boom.
All of a sudden the lamb just drops.
Dead as a doornail obviously.
All the other, like the cattle, they go
crazy.
They're trying to jump out of their pens
except for the rest of the sheep.
They're just standing there, what happened to Wally?
You know or something.
They didn't move.
They would just there and just stand there
until Wally, you're laying down on the job.
You know or whatever it is and then
they drag him away.
Next, they come right up until they, whatever
number were to be slaughtered.
But there it's, that's probably the hardest, when
you find, this is one you've known.
Answered your voice.
You loved it.
Well the children of Israel's Leviticus chapter 1
tells us that from then on, whenever they
came to offer a burnt offering, they were
still to come and bring in a lamb
without blemish, the first year, without spot.
And there it tells them, they could bring
it in and they were doing the offering
but the priest put the knife in their
hand.
The priest didn't kill it for them.
There that man came and he was to
make an offering and he with his own
hand was to fully realize this lamb is
dying, not for the priest's sins, my sins,
my sins.
They loved the lamb.
And here it is something that, that when
you look at this, what a picture.
Tells us verse 7, they shall take the
blood and they shall strike it on the
two side posts wherein the upper door posts
of the house and they shall eat it.
It goes on down in verse 13 and
it says, and the blood shall be unto
you 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 spite the land of Egypt.
Here the Lord, he looks there and he
tells them, I want you to take the
blood and I want you to put on
the door and the little side posts of
the house wherein you are and he said,
and when I see the blood.
What a picture.
Put it on the door post.
How ugly, how distasteful.
Can you imagine somebody inviting you over to
their home, oh you come, you got to
see this, oh we're so excited about it.
You come walking up to the house and
here's you walking up, there's blood on the
door, on the door post, all around the
house just tripping down.
Nice house.
It leaks, you know or something, you got
a problem here.
There was something that anybody that was to
come into the house, anybody in essentially the
entryway into their home, the entryway into fellowship,
the entryway into that person, their doorway of
their very life was something there with the
blood.
Atoned, the blood covered.
There was to be the prominent factor in
coming into somebody's life.
That ought to be the most prominent factor
of every child of God's heart and life
constantly.
Not just now and then, not just periodically,
but the story of their personal redemption.
The most glorious part of their whole being.
In a sense they're the one that has
brought them out of slavery, out of Egypt,
out of bondage, out of sorrow, out of
night, out of agony.
The one that brought them out and gave
them every blessing they've ever known by the
shedding of his blood.
And the most prominent factor that there ought
to be in every child of God's heart,
every child of God's life is the blood.
Here God looks and he says, when I
see the blood?
And it's a wonderful question, I suppose.
When does he see the blood?
So often, you know, we've got our symbols
and we've got our fish and we've got
our crosses and we've got our doves and
we've got our bumper stickers and we've got
all of the other sorts of things around.
But here God looks at them and he
says, when I see the blood?
When heaven looks there and the most precious
thing that heaven has ever done, the most
expensive thing that heaven has ever invested in,
the most awesome project it has ever done,
the sending of the Son of God into
the world to die for all the sins
of all the world of all time and
he who knew no sin to become sin
for us.
To shed his blood for the remission of
our sins.
To have the world, the Bible says, God
just spoke it into existence.
To have the planet that you and I
walk around, to have every blessing of life,
all the other stuff that there is in
all the world, it just is.
God just said, let it be.
But to redeem us, he had to climb
down from his throne, take on human flesh.
And there is he as a lamb done
before the slaughter, silent, not uttered not a
word, going there and pouring out his blood
for us.
The most precious thing that heaven has and
it ought to be the most precious thing
that you and I have.
It ought to be the most precious thing
that a marriage has.
It ought to be the most precious thing
that a family has.
It ought to be the most precious thing
that there is in all the world.
I wonder how many people again, I believe
our preciousness of each other is directly related
to the preciousness of the blood.
Preciousness of a husband to a wife or
a wife to a husband or children to
parents.
If you're having a struggle and they're not
precious to you, if your parents aren't precious
to you, if relatives and friends are not
precious to you, you look at the blood.
You look at the cross.
I believe it melts the heart of anybody
that ought to see it.
And they're nothing more precious.
As Peter tells us there, he says, for
as much as you know you, you're not
redeemed with corruptible things as silver and gold
from your vain conversation received by the traditions
of your fathers, but with the precious blood
of Christ as a lamb without blemish and
without spot.
I tell you, you and I, we have
nothing more precious than what's right in front
of us tonight.
The most powerful sermon ever preached in its
two elements.
But as we realize, if we didn't understand
it, it ought to shake us up.
It ought to be something that can revolutionize
any life, any home, any marriage, any family.
It's sufficient for the entirety of it.
Nothing more powerful.
Would you be free from the burden of
sin?
There's power in the blood.
Would you over evil a victory win?
There's a wonderful power in the blood.
There's power, power, wonder-working power in the
blood of the Lamb.
Would you be free from passion and pride?
There's power in the blood.
Come for a cleansing to Calvary's tide.
There's a wonderful power in the blood.
Would you be whiter, much whiter than snow?
There's power in the blood, power in the
blood.
Sin's stains are lost in its life-giving
flow.
There's a wonderful power in the blood.
Would you do service for Jesus your King?
There's power in the blood, power in the
blood.
How long, how long, maybe each one of
us ask ourselves, has it been since he's
seen the blood?
How long has it been?
Is there some other darling thought, other thing
in our life that is more precious to
us than the blood?
Or is it something we take into our
hand and realize, Jesus, this is the most
powerful, awesome, wonderful thing in the world that
there is?
That's communion.
I hear the words of love, I gaze
upon the blood, I see the mighty sacrifice,
and I have peace with God.
You not only have it with God in
an instant, you'll have it with wherever you
let the blood flow.
It's also a wonderful picture essentially here of
appropriating Christ.
In verse 8 it says, And they shall
eat the flesh in that night, roast with
fire of unleavened bread, and with bitter herbs
ye shall eat it.
Eat not of it raw or sodden at
all with water, but roast with fire in
his head and his legs with the pertinence
thereof.
And ye shall let nothing of it remain
until the morning, and that which remaineth of
it until the morning shall be burned with
fire, thus ye shall eat it.
But here the Lord he tells them now,
he says, I actually after you now that
this lamb has been slain for you, and
it's died, and now I want you to
take it.
And I want you to literally appropriate it
in your life.
Eat it.
The strength you will need now to go
on and to have a new life, to
have a new marriage, to have a new
home, to build a new relationship, to begin
a new pattern, to start fresh with the
kids, to move into a new world.
It isn't just something where you just come
and do this and go.
He says, no, you stop and you take
it in.
You appropriate.
And Jesus and John, the Pharisees went, who
are you?
They're always trying to figure him out, of
course.
And finally he tells them, he says, I'll
tell you I am.
I'm the bread of life.
Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness,
and they're dead.
But this is the bread that cometh down
from heaven, and that man may eat thereof
and not die.
I am the living bread, which came down
from heaven.
And if any man eat this bread, he
shall live forever.
And the bread that I will give him
is my flesh, which is given for the
life of the world.
The Jews therefore strove amongst themselves, saying, How
can this man give us flesh to eat?
Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I
say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh
of the Son of Man, and drink his
blood, ye have no life in you.
Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood,
hath eternal life.
And I will raise him up at that
last day.
For my flesh is meat indeed, and my
blood is drink indeed.
He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my
blood dwelleth in me, and I in him.
As the living Father hath sent me, I
live by the Father, so he that eateth
of me shall live by me.
This is that bread which came down from
heaven.
Not as your fathers did eat manna and
are dead, he that eateth of this bread
shall live forever.
Many therefore of his disciples, when they heard
this, they said, This is a hard thing.
Who can hear it?
When Jesus knew himself that his disciples murmured
it, he said unto them, Does this offend
you?
What in if ye see the Son of
Man ascending up where he was before?
It's the Spirit that quickeneth, the flesh profiteth
nothing.
The words that I speak unto you, they're
spirit and they're life.
See, I'm not talking, you know, physically.
I'm talking spiritually.
I'm talking about that I have got to
become the very basic sustenance of your existence.
I'm the bread of life.
Just like your body needs bread, your soul
needs me.
You'll just let me be the fundamental nourishment
of your heart, of your life.
Appropriate me.
My blood will forgive the past and my
life will give you the future.
This is communion.
This is what he offers to us tonight.
Not just simply the hope to where you
can be forgiven and forgive one another, but
something there as well where he says, and
I'll give you the strength to walk out
of here hand in hand, in arm in
arm with a new love, if you will
continue to procreate.
If you continue to take me in.
And two more things before we have communion.
It's also a picture of total judgment.
It's a picture here when this happens, the
Lord tells him in verse 12, he says,
For I will pass through the land of
Egypt this night, and I will smite the
firstborn in 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 unto you a
token for in the houses wherein 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 here notice the Lord tells him, he
says, I am going to execute judgment in
all of Egypt, of both man and beast.
I'm going to judge everyone, absolutely everyone.
And here it is something that what is
happening, he says, but when I see the
blood, and the tragic thing is the English
word that we have, you know, we have
the word Passover.
And he says, when I see the blood,
I'll pass over.
But the concept that we have of this
is that as if he just omits you.
When I see the blood, I'm just going
to skip you.
I'm not going to judge.
That's not what it means.
The word Passover in Hebrew, it means to
pass over or by or through.
It means to alienate, to do away with,
to take away, to pass on before or
to go into an advance thereof, and to
pass unto other hands, to cause, to pass
away unto other hands.
In other words, what he is saying, when
I see the blood, I'm going to judge
every man, every, the firstborn of every man
of every beast.
No one was omitted.
God is just.
Death happened to all.
But what happened was is when I pass
over, I will pass to another hand the
judgment that is due you.
I'm just.
Death will happen.
It will be paid.
And the wonderful thing is, is that when
you and I come and we take communion
to realize he, that I am taking the
judgment that says, God, I'm a sinner.
If you're denied and you have no sin,
communion means nothing.
But if there's something that says, Lord, forgive
me.
And I don't want my sins just omitted,
skipped away.
They were already judged in Jesus, and I
was found guilty.
It's interesting, you know, the reason to, I
believe the reason Jesus uttered not a word
when he was on the cross is he
had no defense.
He'd already taken my place.
When somebody, when there he's asked, Pilate's asking
him, speak for yourself, defend yourself.
There was no defense.
He'd taken my place in the garden the
night before.
Not a word to say, no defense at
all.
Wasn't there on his behalf.
He was there on mine.
So young, no words at all.
I've got a, I've got a price to
pay for someone I love and I'll pay
it.
And then lastly, communion is a whole new
future.
For he tells them there, and he, in
verse, where is it?
Oh, it's in verse 11.
And this shall be, and thus ye shall
eat it, with your loins girded, your shoes
on your feet, your staff in your hand,
and ye shall eat it in haste.
It is the Lord's Passover.
The Lord tells us now, he says, here
they took, they told him to do this
in the evening.
They did it in the night hours, the
dark hours.
And yet the Lord tells me, he says,
I want you to do this now with
your loins girded, your shoes in your feet
and your staff in your hand.
Take it in haste.
It's the Lord's Passover.
In other words, he says, you eat this
with the plan and the expectation to immediately
walk out the door to a new life.
A shaking that is so complete and so
wonderful that you're clean.
The bondage is gone.
The guilt is gone.
The failure is gone.
The oppressors are gone.
And the wonderful thing is, is that everything
that said you were a slave is now
gone.
You're clean and you're fresh.
And tonight as we take communion, may it
be something that each one of us know
what it is as we realize a fresh,
the Lord looks at us and he says,
this is my body broken for you, broken
for your home, broken for your marriage, broken
for your family, broken for your household, broken
for your neighborhood.
There's nothing more powerful in all the world.
And when you and I look there and
say, Lord, I could use you shaking up
tonight.
I could use something fresh of you in
my home and realize there, Jesus, shake me,
cleanse me, forgive me, take me into a
new world where I appropriate you with all
my heart now and tomorrow and again and
again.
And then by the way, next month, you'll
probably need a fresh shaking, but that's okay.
The Lord knows that.
But tonight he looks there and he says,
can I start fresh with you?
Can I wash you?
Can I cleanse you?
Let's pray together.
Father, we thank you for your love and
your goodness to us.
Lord, we thank you for this time as
a body, as a family.
And Jesus, we just pray that each one
of us, as we now move away from
any human communion and communication, and Lord, as
we take your message, I pray that as
it goes to each one, that you would
set many free.
That those that maybe have all sorts of
things that are built up to realize you
knock on the door tonight, just say, when
I see the blood, I'll set you free.
I'll change you.
When I see the blood, we'll go into
a whole new world.
And what is precious to me is precious
to you.
We're ready to go.
I love you.
And Lord, may each one of us know
that you love us totally.
It's never an issue if the lamb is
too little for us.
There's plenty to go around, to forgive every
one of us.
Thank you, Father.
In Jesus' name, amen.