The Institution of the Passover

[0:00] Well, when you believe the words are right, you arrive at a, they offer you something. When you're skeptical about the words, then you never, ever, ever, ever, ever know, nor have the understanding.

[0:17] So, I hope you've arrived at that conclusion that this Bible here is pure, and that every word of God is pure, and that these words are right, it's true from the beginning, and they'll endure forever.

[0:28] So, if you have your Bible, find now Exodus chapter number 12. And we took a week off, but we're going to pick it right back up where we left off.

[0:41] And the last time we were together, we read the first 13 verses, and really focused in on verses 12 and 13 of this chapter.

[0:52] And I'm going to read them again with you, just to kind of get you back into, get your bearings of where we were two weeks ago. In Exodus 12, verse 12, For I will pass through the land of Egypt this night, and will smite all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast.

[1:06] 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.

[1:17] And the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you when I smite the land of Egypt. So, we looked at a few things in those verses that are about the Lord, really.

[1:29] Things about the Lord that still hold true today. The first was that the Lord is coming, and that the Lord is no respecter of persons in judgment. And then, thirdly, that the Lord requires blood.

[1:40] A blood sacrifice. A perfect lamb. And it was very easy to find in this Bible who that lamb is. It's the Lord Jesus Christ. And we'll even get a little bit more of that today.

[1:51] Now, I'm not going to read a section of the Bible with you this morning. I don't know that I could without messing up 30 times and passing out. But I'm just going to pick through this passage and probably really abbreviate the thoughts this morning.

[2:06] But I believe there's some things that we can get out of this next section. Verse number 14, if you'll find your place in Exodus 12, verse 14. And this day, this day shall be unto you for a memorial.

[2:20] And ye shall keep it a feast to the Lord throughout your generations. Ye shall keep it a feast by an ordinance forever. Now, this passage we're in in Exodus 12 is where God institutes the Passover.

[2:36] It's the very first observance of this Passover meal. And it's one that's going to carry on forever, as the last words say in verse 14.

[2:47] And so the instructions given aren't just for the initial day and the setting, but really they're to go forward in all the years of Israel.

[2:59] It's a memorial in verse 14. And God is insistent upon Israel remembering some things forever. He says it a few more times.

[3:09] Look at verse 17. Just look at the... I'll read the verse. Ye shall observe the feast of unleavened bread, for in this selfsame day... There it is again, just like in verse 14. In this selfsame day have I brought your armies out of the land of Egypt, Therefore shall ye observe this day and your generations by an ordinance forever.

[3:28] He says it one more time. Verse 24. And ye shall observe this thing for an ordinance to thee and to thy sons forever. And so this is a memorial not just for the moment, but for a long time to come.

[3:44] And God has determined that these people never forget this night. This night. It's called the Passover. Verse 11 says at the end of verse 11 it is the Lord's Passover.

[3:56] It's an interesting... It's taking two separate words, putting them together and creating kind of a new word. It was in verse 13 where he said, When I see the blood I will pass over you.

[4:08] And now this is going to be called the Passover. And so he's instituting something new for them. And he wants to make sure that they never forget for all of their generations this night.

[4:21] It's an important thing because God installs it as a memorial to be observed in their culture forever. You know that any calendar you buy today is going to have the words Passover on it.

[4:35] And this is where it started right here. Exodus chapter 12. It's still around today. So he installed it permanently into their culture. Now if it's a memorial, then there's some things about this night that God is insistent that his people remember.

[4:52] And I want to look at a few things from this passage of what it is that God is insistent that they remember and keep recalling once a year. One time a year. Not every month.

[5:02] Not every week. But one time a year. They're to look back on this exact very night and remember what it was like. So let's consider that. Let's pray. And then we'll get through this passage.

[5:14] Father, please give me strength and give us ears to hear. And may the word of God be powerful. May it be illuminating. May it also be edifying and speak to our hearts.

[5:27] As we read a historical passage, Lord, may we be able to make application to the Lord Jesus Christ and to the sacrifice that he made for our sins.

[5:38] And Lord, may we keep that in our minds and memories. And may you use this time this morning to help each one and to draw us to Calvary and to put our Savior very, very high up in our mind's eye.

[5:52] And may we fall in love again with him this morning. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Amen. So four things I want to show from this passage. Look back at verse number three that they need to remember.

[6:06] In verse three of the chapter, it says, Speaking to all the congregation of Israel, saying, In the tenth day of this month they shall take to them, every man, a lamb. A lamb.

[6:16] And that lamb, we read it last week, is to be without blemish. That lamb is to be slain. The blood of that lamb is to be struck, stricken, stricken, what's the word, upon the two side posts and the upper post of the house, the door post of the house.

[6:34] And that lamb then is to be eaten. In verse number eight, They shall eat the flesh in that night, roast with fire. So first of all, they need to remember the sacrifice. It was an innocent lamb that was killed.

[6:47] It was the blood of that lamb that was applied in order to protect that household from the destroyer, from the death that was coming to the houses of Egypt that night.

[7:00] It may not have mattered so much if you were the second born. It may not have mattered if you were the third or the fourth or the fifth born. But if you were the first born, your life was in the balance that night.

[7:12] And if you truly understood what was taking place, you would have been nervous. You would have eaten that meal with just a little stirring in your stomach, a little fear maybe in your heart and in your mind.

[7:26] Because that night there was a sacrifice that was sacrificed. And it was your life or that sacrifice. It was one or the other. The first born was in the balance.

[7:38] That sacrifice was then a substitution for the first born of the house. Because death was coming. And death is no respecter of persons in judgment.

[7:51] And so something or someone is going to die. Look at chapter 12. Look over at verses 26 and 27. Verse 26.

[8:03] And it shall come to pass when your children shall say unto you, What mean ye by this service? That ye 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.

[8:21] And the people bowed the head and worshipped. He said it is the sacrifice. Remember the sacrifice. A sacrifice was necessary that night.

[8:33] And so year by year, they are to remember that sacrifice. Now, I want to get some men to read for me. So I don't have to do it all here.

[8:43] I'm going to ask Eric, would you turn to Ephesians 5 and verse 2? And let me get John. Romans 5, 6, 7, and 8.

[8:54] And Mark, I'll give you Hebrews 9, 22 through 26. And Jason, I'll get you again, 10. Hebrews 10, 10 through 12.

[9:07] I'll say it again, but it's 22 to 26. So we'll start in Ephesians 5, verse 2. Now consider, if you're not turning, listen clearly. Listen to the substitution that the Lord Jesus Christ is, the sacrifice that he is.

[9:23] Go ahead with yours, Eric, 5, 2. We walk in love. Christ also has loved us and has given himself for us and are bringing in a sacrifice to God for his peace and all the Savior.

[9:36] Jesus Christ gave himself an offering and a sacrifice to God for us. Next one is Romans 5, 6 through 8. Christ died for us.

[10:03] Christ died for us. That lamb died for the firstborn. And our sacrifice, the Lord Jesus Christ, died for the ungodly. He died for us.

[10:14] Next one, 9, 22 to 26. And almost all things are by the law, first blood. Without shedding of blood is no revision. It was therefore necessary that the heavens and things and the heavens should be purified indeed.

[10:30] For the heavenly things themselves are better sacrifices than these. For Christ is not entered into the holy place made with hands, which are the figures of the true, but into heaven itself now.

[10:45] Nor yet that he should offer himself often as the high priest entered into the holy place every year with the blood of others. For then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world, but now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.

[11:08] By the sacrifice of himself. It might be a little more powerful if we were all looking at these verses, but go ahead. Try to listen clearly. God of which will we are sanctified to the offering of the body of Jesus Christ at once for all.

[11:29] And every priest standeth daily ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins.

[11:41] But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down on the right hand of God. So you have a sacrifice.

[11:52] You have a sacrifice. The Lord Jesus Christ, you may not, it may not really resonate with you because you didn't grow up in a culture that had to offer animals, that had to bring in and have them without blemish and bring them to the temple and have that innocent and perfect and flawless creature lose its life because you sinned.

[12:14] You don't know what that's like. It's just, it doesn't relate, does it? And you didn't have to take that precious little animal. It's cute. It's cuddly. It makes the sweet little sounds like a young infant animal does.

[12:29] And that kind of stuff immediately can attach to your heart. You can enjoy that. You can just think, this is wonderful. I love that little lamb or that little goat.

[12:40] That's natural. And then you have to offer it. You have to get rid of it, but you have to watch it die. And you have to take it to the priest and see it put to death and its blood offered to pay for your sins.

[12:55] And you don't know what it's like. You just, we don't have that, that real life imagery that we've experienced to see something die so that we could be forgiven of our sin or atonement.

[13:08] You just, you can't relate to this. I can't relate to this. It's not as powerful to me. But I can read it in the Bible and I can understand that what Jesus Christ did was He offered one sacrifice for sins forever and sat down at the right hand of the Father.

[13:23] And I can see that He died for us. He died for the ungodly. It was in my place that the Lord Jesus Christ gave His blood for my sins. So it was for me and it was for you.

[13:36] And there's an old song that says it was either him or me. And it's from Barabbas' standpoint. And yesterday I looked up in John and in Luke and in Matthew and just read the passages about Barabbas, how they, at this Passover, the very feast of Passover, that it was tradition to let go one prisoner.

[13:57] And the pilot wanted to let go of Jesus Christ. But no, the Word of God has to be fulfilled. That lamb has to be our Passover and he's got to die. And so the people said, we want Barabbas.

[14:10] And he got out. And the song that was written says it was either him, meaning Barabbas saying it was either Jesus or it was me that was going to be sacrificed or killed that night. And from Barabbas' standpoint, a guilty sinner got to go free because Jesus Christ died in His place as it were.

[14:27] So remember the sacrifice. A Christian would do us well to remember the sacrifice that Jesus Christ gave His life. And the point is, it was for your sin.

[14:38] It was for you. It wasn't just for all of us or for the world or Jesus died for all sinners. No, you're the sinner. You are. He should be your Savior.

[14:49] When you bow your head to pray and you say, Lord, thank you for saving me. When you talk to God, that ought to start to come through. That it was me that sinned.

[15:00] It was me that is going to hell. It was me that deserves the wrath of God. If it's not, if that's gotten cold or gotten... The Bible says in Peter, it says you've forgotten that you were purged from your own sins.

[15:13] God help you not to forget the sacrifice. It was the blood of Jesus Christ. Come back to Exodus chapter 12. Look at verse number 8. Something else in this beyond just the flesh that they were eating that night.

[15:27] In verse 8 it says, They ate the flesh in that night, roast with fire and unleavened bread and with bitter herbs. They shall eat it.

[15:39] Bitter herbs. Second thing I want to say is that you need to remember the bitterness. Come back to chapter 1 of Exodus. There's a reason that God had them mix this thing with bitter herbs.

[15:53] It's so that they would remember year by year the bitterness. that their life was in. The condition they were in before God came and delivered them. Exodus chapter 1.

[16:04] Look at verse number 13. It says, The Egyptians made the children of Israel to serve with rigor. And they made their lives bitter with hard bondage and mortar and brick and all manner of service in the field.

[16:20] And all their service wherein they made to serve was with rigor. There was no grace in that land of Egypt. There was no mercy in Egypt. There was no comfort in Egypt.

[16:31] Just bitterness, rigor, hard life. Look at chapter 3. Exodus chapter 3 verse number 7. And the Lord said, I have surely seen the affliction of my people which are in Egypt.

[16:46] Affliction. And I have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters for I know their sorrows. In verse number 9. Now therefore behold, the cry of the children of Israel has come unto me and I have also seen the oppression wherewith the Egyptians oppressed them.

[17:06] And so that night they're to have bitter herbs and it's going to be a memorial to slay that lamb and to eat that flesh but then to mix it with bitter herbs because they need to remember the bitterness.

[17:21] It's funny how time has a way of just assuaging the grief and the real affliction or just clouding the negative memories of life.

[17:32] It's not, because they're not pleasant so you don't truly want to dwell on them. And so as time goes by they just start to fade. And they just, they're not as powerful as they were in the moment.

[17:45] And that's what happens. Look at a couple verses here how these Jews felt about their time in Egypt. Look at Numbers chapter 11. I'm just going to run a few verses here in Numbers.

[18:06] Numbers 11, verse number 4. The Bible says, The mixed multitude that was among them fell a lusting.

[18:18] And the children of Israel also wept again and said, Who shall give us flesh to eat? We remember... Well, this Passover is a memorial.

[18:29] It's causing them to remember something. It's forcing them to remember something. But what do they remember? We remember the fish which we did eat in Egypt freely.

[18:41] The cucumbers and the melons and the leeks and the onions and the garlic. Oh, we remember how good it was. In verse 6, But now, our soul is dried away.

[18:53] There is nothing at all beside this manna before our eyes. Oh, how quickly they must have forgotten what it was like to hear a mother wailing because a soldier took her son and cast him into the river.

[19:07] They must have forgotten what it was like to bear the stripes in their back, the beatings from the taskmasters, the affliction and the sorrow. They remember the cucumbers. What a blessing.

[19:19] The leeks. We remember the good times in Egypt. It's funny how time has a way of clouding your memory. Look at chapter 14 in Numbers.

[19:30] Numbers 14 in the first couple verses of the chapter. All the congregation lifted up their voice and cried and the people wept that night and all the children of Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron and the whole congregation said unto them, Would God that we had died in the land of Egypt or would God we had died in this wilderness and wherefore hath the Lord brought us unto this land to fall by the sword that our wives and our children should be a prey were it not better for us to return into Egypt?

[20:02] They said one to another, Let us make a captain. Let us return into Egypt. There's a good reason why God needs to remind these people.

[20:16] They have not been out of Egypt very long at this point and they're remembering only the good things. Look at chapter 20. Numbers chapter 20.

[20:32] And verse 2. And there was no water for the congregation. You notice this is when they're lacking, when they're in a stressful situation that their minds are working against them.

[20:49] There was no water for the congregation. They gathered themselves together against Moses and against Aaron and the people chode with Moses and spake saying, Would God that we had died when our brethren died before the Lord.

[21:00] What a stupid thing to say. They died before the Lord. The fire of God came out and destroyed them, devoured them. I wish that would have happened to me. I wish I was just dead.

[21:11] What a pitiful person to say such a thing. And the people chode against them. So then verse 4. And why have we brought up this congregation of the Lord into the wilderness that we and our cattle should die there?

[21:22] And wherefore have you made us to come up out of Egypt? Why did you bring us out of Egypt? To bring us in unto this evil place? It is no place of seed or of figs or vines or pomegranates neither is there any water to drink.

[21:38] Why did you cause us to leave? Do you not remember what Egypt was like? Do you not remember it was you that cried unto the Lord? It was your cry that came up to the Lord? That he came down and saw, yeah, their sorrow, they're afflicted, they're oppressed.

[21:54] And now they're saying, why did you bring us out of that? What have they forgotten? One more, chapter 21 and something very similar.

[22:07] Verse number 5. The people spake against God and against Moses. Wherefore have we brought us, wherefore have ye brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness?

[22:20] There's no bread, neither is there any water so low that this light bread, and so the Lord sends fiery serpents. So God institutes this Passover.

[22:31] And in the Passover is not only a sacrifice, but there's also the bitter herbs for them to remember the bitterness. And apparently they quickly forgot the bitterness.

[22:42] And so the bitter herbs year by year are a constant reminder of the reality of life in Egypt. Egypt is not a place for the people of God. where they cannot live freely, they cannot enjoy the mercy and grace of God in Egypt.

[22:58] And it do us all good to recall with thankful hearts, recall the bitter moments of life under the bondage of sin.

[23:09] Remember the days of incarceration. Remember the days of drunkenness. Remember the fighting and the crying and the pain and the days of saying, I'm never going to do this again.

[23:22] And do you good to look back in your mind's eye in faith and remember what God saved you from and pulled you out of. Remember the bitterness because your flesh will only remember the good times.

[23:35] Your flesh is a filthy liar. It has very short sight of what the life of sin really was and it is. And so it's good to remember that Egypt was not the good life.

[23:47] It was the hard life. It was a cruel life. Being a servant to sin. A cruel, an ugly master that doesn't care about you.

[23:58] Remember the bitterness. Something else to remember in this Passover in chapter 12. Look at verse number 11. The Bible says, And thus shall ye eat it with your loins girded, your shoes on your feet and your staff in your hand.

[24:16] Ye shall eat it in haste. It is the Lord's Passover. The third thing to remember is the urgency. Remember the urgency. Look over at verse 33.

[24:29] Chapter 12, verse 33 says, And the Egyptians were urgent upon the people that they might send them out of the land in haste. For they said, We be all dead men.

[24:42] Remember the urgency. See, they were thrust out of the land that night. And so what God did was he implemented something into this feast called unleavened bread.

[24:54] I mentioned it. It was in verse number 8. It says that there was unleavened bread and with bitter herbs shall they eat it. And so this Passover feast is to have not just in the feast itself but days of unleavened bread.

[25:07] And why is that? Well, this is a reminder of the urgency of that night, of them fleeing and getting out of Egypt. Look at verse number 34. Verse 34, it says, And the people took their dough before it was leavened, their kneading troughs, being bound up in their clothes upon their shoulders.

[25:28] And they took off. The bread they had wasn't leavened. Look over at verse 39. And they baked unleavened cakes of the dough which they brought forth out of Egypt for it was not leavened because they were thrust out of Egypt and could not tarry.

[25:46] Neither had they prepared for themselves any victual. So while it was just pretty much normal bread, it never got the chance to rise and they're just going to have to eat it like that. They're going to have to bake it the way it was.

[25:58] They didn't have any time to wait. And so that was something God instituted in this Passover was the observance and the remembrance of the urgency.

[26:09] And he did it by instituting seven days in verse 15 that they're going to eat unleavened bread. And so that feast later is called the days of unleavened bread.

[26:21] So remember the urgency. And this serves as a reminder for us too how bad it really was in Egypt. If they could remember the urgency of which they left, how the Egyptians treated them and how when God destroyed their land they thrust them out.

[26:38] They weren't hugging them and kissing them and saying goodbye and I'll miss you and I hope things go well for you. Good luck. No, they were get out of here now.

[26:49] Get lost. Because their lives were destroyed. And it serves to remind them that the Egyptians never loved them. The Egyptians only used them and abused them.

[27:01] And this urgency, this memory of that night when the Lord passed over that land causes them to remember the tension and to remember the division and to remember that they didn't belong there in Egypt.

[27:16] They didn't belong there at all. It wasn't a good place. We've already mentioned the bitterness and how hard and ugly it was. But it wasn't a place for them to raise their families. It wasn't a place of peace.

[27:27] And God got them out of that horrible place. And this Passover is to allow the memory of the reality of that experience in Egypt to come through in this meal.

[27:39] Allow it to all come back to mind. This is not a place where you wanted to hang around and lollygag. It was time to get out and get out now. There was real urgency.

[27:50] The tensions were high. Remember that they didn't belong there. It's a memory that they should recall that they wanted to get out and get out for good and never look back.

[28:06] They weren't planning on coming back to visit in a year's time. They weren't going to have their vacations down in Egypt and just remember where the house was they lived in and this is where I worked.

[28:17] Oh, this is where I shed my blood from the task mat. No, they weren't ever going back. There was an urgency that night to get out. Finally, the window opened and they were all flying through it as fast as they could.

[28:31] Don't ever go back. The idea is they should never look back that direction. Egypt is a closed door to God's people. They're supposed to move forward and never look back.

[28:42] Remember the urgency. And there's something else. Look at verse number 17 in Exodus chapter 12. You shall observe the feast of unleavened bread for in this selfsame day have I brought your armies out of the land of Egypt.

[28:59] Therefore shall you observe this day in your generations by an ordinance forever. Remember the deliverance. Remember that God brought your armies out of the land of Egypt.

[29:13] In this feast and this time of Passover they're to remember the deliverance. They're celebrating and remembering the very day that they were delivered from Egypt.

[29:25] Egypt. We remember and we celebrate birthdays and we celebrate anniversaries and there's certain days in our special occasions maybe in your life that we celebrate and want to remember.

[29:38] But can there truly be any day on your calendar that supersedes the day that you trusted Jesus Christ as your Savior and you were delivered from Egypt.

[29:55] You were delivered from the world and from your sin and paying for your sin in hell. Can there be any day more important to you than the day that you got saved? I think that ought to be a day on your calendar.

[30:07] I don't have it on mine because I don't know the day. I truly don't. I was just a young boy and as it was I've told you this before growing up in a Christian home I've prayed the Lord to save me 50 times.

[30:19] Just a kid hearing the gospel all the time. And I don't know the day. I don't know. The kids sang a song at camp and they sang about the hand of the Lord touching them.

[30:32] It's about their salvation and they're singing It Was on a Sunday. Somebody touched me and they sang when they sang the day that they got saved they stand up and they go through Monday and through Tuesday and through Wednesday and all the way to Saturday and if you're still not standing then they say It Was on a Sunday.

[30:48] Somebody and then a bunch of people stand up because they didn't know the date of their salvation. And I don't have that down on my calendar specifically but I tell you this much it's more important than the day I was born into this world.

[31:01] It's more important than the day any of my children were born or grandchildren for that matter. It's more important than the day I married my wife. I don't think there's a day on this calendar that's more important to me than the day I got saved.

[31:13] And whether I can put my finger on it or not doesn't matter. The day of my deliverance in this self-same day there to celebrate there's a song that says I shall never forget the day when the Lord saved me.

[31:28] Some of these hymns have verses written into them that describe the memory and the remembrance of the experience of trusting Christ as your Savior. It should never get old. I want you to notice not only are they remembering the deliverance but they're remembering the deliverer.

[31:44] In that verse 17 it says in this self-same day have I God says have I brought your armies out. And when they're considering the Passover it points to a work of God.

[31:57] It doesn't point to the time that they got out. It doesn't point to how it benefited them as much as it does to the hand of God that moved in that land that night and came down there and rescued and delivered them.

[32:10] God says I brought you out. That reminds me of Psalm 40 being brought up and brought out of the miry clay and how he set my feet upon a rock. The salvation that they experienced the deliverance was the work of God and it was not of yourselves like Ephesians 2 and verse 8 and that not of yourselves.

[32:30] It is the gift of God. And so it's important to remember the deliverance but also just who it was that delivered you. It wasn't you. And it wasn't your devotion.

[32:41] It wasn't turning over a leaf in your life. It wasn't the fact that I'm going to be a good boy now or a good girl. It wasn't your resolve or some New Year's result. No, it was the hand of God that moved and delivered you from your sin.

[32:55] And so the institution of the Passover is a memorial and it's followed by these days of unleavened bread and I didn't spend the time to read through that. You can glance through some of that in verses 15 on for a couple five or six verses where they're not to eat anything leavened or have it in their house.

[33:13] The institution of this is a memorial. Verse 14 And God is right to insist that his people be reminded yearly of this moment in their life.

[33:28] The inception of them as a nation. He reminds them of the bitterness of a life in sin. He reminds them of a sacrifice that was made, blood that was shed, a substitute for their own souls.

[33:43] He reminds them of a release and a deliverance and the urgency of that night. But there's something to tack on to this and that is we as believers in Jesus Christ we have our own memorial.

[33:55] We don't have the exact Passover that we observe and follow but we have another kind of memorial that was established for us and I just want to read that to you and remind you of it.

[34:06] Look at 1 Corinthians chapter 11. And this is where the Apostle Paul gives this to the church as an ordinance that we're to observe.

[34:24] It's something that the Lord Jesus Christ instituted the night before His crucifixion with the twelve in the upper room. And so we don't celebrate the Passover but God's given us a memorial service that we keep and observe.

[34:42] 1 Corinthians chapter 11 and let's just read this passage here verse 23 through 26. Paul says For I have received of the Lord 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 break it and said Take, eat, this is my body which is broken for you this do in remembrance of me.

[35:08] In the same manner also He took the cup when He had supped saying this cup is the New Testament in my blood this do ye as often as ye drink it in remembrance of me.

[35:19] For as often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup ye do show the Lord's death till He come. You'll notice the two times it says in remembrance of me.

[35:32] Of me. We're not thinking about a lamb and we're not thinking about bitter herbs and we're not thinking of unleavened bread and what they can represent and remind us of.

[35:42] We're thinking of one thing and one thing only it's the Lord Jesus Christ. Our memorial service it's called a few things called communion or the Lord's table or also called the Lord's supper.

[35:56] It's a time when we remember what Jesus Christ endured for me. It's for me personally. His body was broken for me and His blood was shed for me and I don't have to go to hell because of Jesus Christ because He took that cup and He drank it and there was bitterness in that for sure.

[36:16] It was a bitter cup. The cup of the wrath of God against my sins and He endured that for me. The Bible says that He took my sins in His own body on the tree and He suffered for sinners the just for the unjust and I remember clearly it was for me by the grace of God and I hadn't planned to do it it would have been a great time to do it is to observe the Lord's supper this morning but truth is we don't have enough of the cups so I'm going to have to order them and do that soon I believe but this Passover was instituted back then in Exodus it was instituted to keep their minds on some things God did not want them to forget about and it was the Lord's institution He was insistent upon this He could have delivered them sent them on their way and continued to bless them and said now follow my laws and follow my rules and I'm going to bless you it's going to be all good I'm going to bless your children your cattle your crops everything in the land is going to be milk and honey and if you'll just follow my and He could have it would have been just happily ever after but He said no

[37:26] I want you to remember this stuff I want your minds to be forced every year to go back to how bad it was and it's a healthy thing for you Christian for your mind to be able to go back to what it's like what it was like to be lost or to be living in such sin that you couldn't get out of it's good for you to remember that bitterness just as well it's good for you to remember how Jesus Christ delivered your sorry soul and got you out if you're born again today and I believe most if not all of you are then we have something to remember we have something to be thankful for we have a Savior that sacrificed Himself for us what did He get out of it?

[38:12] what did He get when He bought you with His own blood? did He get any praise? is He getting any worship? is He getting any love?

[38:23] any attention? any time? is He getting any fellowship? so it might do us good to remember now the the thing that Paul said here was as far as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup it doesn't tell you how often the Passover was yearly it was once a year they were to remember I'm not saying that that's fit for the church some people do it very much over too much maybe but that's the one that we're going to observe here shortly to take us and take our hearts back to Calvary and to remember the Passover for us Christ our Passover how He was the sacrifice for our sins so we're going to close it down there I told you I'd be briefer this morning and the institution of the Passover has application to you and I today because of Jesus Christ being the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world and so it do us good to remember some of these things too

[39:29] Lord as we dismiss I ask your spirit and your presence be on our hearts and remind us of just how lost we were without Christ remind us how proud we were how arrogant we were against you thinking ourselves to be righteous when we were nothing but abominable thinking that we're good people when we're sinners enjoying the pleasures of sin not caring that it costs the life of Jesus Christ Lord remind us of who we were and of the wonderful work that you wrought in our hearts thank you for Calvary thank you for the sacrifice that was made on that cross for my sins I know I don't deserve you

[40:30] I know I'll never be worthy of you and so thank you God thank you I love you Lord if anybody in this church this morning is letting the world creep back in and starting to spend some time in Egypt God remind them what they're playing with scare them help them to see the urgency to get cut loose and free and get away and following you Lord just before we go just want to say thank you for saving my soul I thank you for my brothers and sisters who have tasted and experienced the same free gift of eternal life I thank you that we can have fellowship together in Jesus

[41:31] Christ and remember this sacrifice for us help us God now to live for you we pray this in Jesus name Amen Amen