[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to the preaching ministry of the Agopic Baptist Church in George, South Africa.
[SPEAKER_00]: Good morning.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's great to be together this morning.
[SPEAKER_00]: Be able to worship God.
[SPEAKER_00]: And here's the word, as we are in Exodus chapter 12.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you'd like to look with me.
[SPEAKER_00]: The last two Sundays, we have been in Exodus chapter 12.
[SPEAKER_00]: and we've looked at the two memorials of the Passover and the feast of the Unleavened Bread.
[SPEAKER_00]: And both of these, as we have seen, commemorate the Lord's deliverance of the people out of bondage in Egypt.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they were given to Israel that so that they, in the years to come, would look back,
[SPEAKER_00]: And remember, the way in which God had delivered them.
[SPEAKER_00]: And there's an emphasis on his power and the strong hand, in which he kept them and delivered them out of their bondage.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the Passover, as we saw also in a particular way, looks forward, not only looking back, but looks forward and foreshadows the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ and His death on the cross to deliver us out of our bondage to sin and spiritual death.
[SPEAKER_00]: So let's look, as we continue in this lengthy chapter, and we can see the importance that the Lord has placed on these events by the amount of information he's given concerning this
[SPEAKER_00]: This event as they are delivered out of out of their bondage.
[SPEAKER_00]: So let's look in the beginning in verse 29 And I want to read through the end of the chapter So we can see this all together Exodus 12 verse 29 at midnight the Lord struck down all the firstborn in the land of Egypt
[SPEAKER_00]: from the firstborn of Pharaoh who said on the throne to the firstborn of the captive who was in the dungeon, and all the firstborn of the livestock.
[SPEAKER_00]: In favor, rose up in the night, E, and all his servants, and all the Egyptians, and there was a great cry in Egypt, or there was not a house where someone was not dead.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then he summoned Moses and Aaron by night and said, go up or sorry, sorry, up, go out from among my people, both you and the people of Israel and go, serve the Lord as you have said, take your flocks and your herds as you have said, and be gone and bless me also.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Egyptians were urgent with the people and sent them out of the land in haste.
[SPEAKER_00]: where they said, we shall all be dead.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the people took the dove before it was eleven and the needing bowls being bound up in the cloaks on their shoulders.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the people of Israel had also done his Moses told them before they had asked the Egyptians for silver and gold in jewels, a jewelry and for the clothing.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the Lord had given the people favoring the side of the Egyptians so that they let them have what they ask, thus the Lord, or sorry, thus they plundered the Egyptians.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the people of Israel journeyed from Ramsey's to suck about, and about 600,000 men on foot besides the women and children.
[SPEAKER_00]: a mixed multitude, also went up with them a very much livestock both flocks and herds.
[SPEAKER_00]: They baked on leaven cakes of the dough that had been brought out of Egypt for it was not leaven because they were thrust out of Egypt and could not wait nor had they prepared any provisions for themselves.
[SPEAKER_00]: In the time that the people of Israel lived in Egypt was 430 years.
[SPEAKER_00]: At the end of the 430 years on that very day, all the hosts of the Lord went out from the land of Egypt.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was a night of watching by the Lord to bring them out of the land of Egypt.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that the same night is a night of watching kept to the Lord by all the people of Israel throughout their generations.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, this is a statute of the Passover, no foreigner shall eat it, but every slave that is bought for money may eat of it after you have circumcised stem.
[SPEAKER_00]: No foreigner or hard worker may eat of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: It shall be eaten in one house and you shall not take any of the flesh outside of the house and you shall not break any of its bones.
[SPEAKER_00]: All the congregation of Israel shall keep it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if a stranger shall sojourn with you and would keep the Passover to the Lord, let his males be circumcised.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then he may come near and keep it.
[SPEAKER_00]: He shall be as a native.
[SPEAKER_00]: of the land.
[SPEAKER_00]: But no uncertain-sized person shall eat of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: There shall be one law for the native and one for the stranger who sojourns with you or among you.
[SPEAKER_00]: And all the people of Israel did just as the Lord commanded Moses and Aaron.
[SPEAKER_00]: And on that very day the Lord brought the people out of the people of Israel, out of the land of Egypt, by their host.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's pray.
[SPEAKER_00]: Father, we come to this passage and we pray that you would help us as we seek to do understand and see the significance of what you are revealing and may we be able to apply it to our own.
[SPEAKER_00]: on time into our own lives and to the church, and we might worship you and honor you as you have given also for Israel to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: Be for us.
[SPEAKER_00]: We pray in Jesus' name.
[SPEAKER_00]: Amen.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, the death of Egypt's first born son in all the livestock,
[SPEAKER_00]: was the 10th and final plague that the Lord brought upon the Egyptians, the Bond Pharaoh.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, this verse 29 again, it says, now it happened at midnight that y'all always struck all the firstborn of the land of Egypt.
[SPEAKER_00]: This was truly a night to be remembered.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that is the significance of all the detail that we have here is that it was
[SPEAKER_00]: to be remembered how that God and what God had done and how he had done it.
[SPEAKER_00]: The first thing I wanted to see here is that it was a night of judgment.
[SPEAKER_00]: This, early all the plagues were judgment upon Pharaoh and Egypt.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you remember the other plagues took place during the day,
[SPEAKER_00]: some extending into the night, but three times specifically, we're told that the Lord sent Moses early in the morning to go and speak to Pharaoh and confront him and warn of a judgment coming.
[SPEAKER_00]: But this plague is specifically said to have come in the middle of the night.
[SPEAKER_00]: Earlier in chapter 11, Moses had announced to Pharaoh that this judgment would come about midnight.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we're not sure that if the judgment of this plague came at night on that very night or if there was a gap between the warning and when the judgment came, but either way I doubt that the Pharaoh and the Egyptians who were aware of this pronouncement had much leap.
[SPEAKER_00]: When you think about how that all the previous nine plagues, everything that Moses pronounced that the Lord would do, he did exactly what he said.
[SPEAKER_00]: And all the efforts to prevent it came to no avail.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I can imagine that there was a great deal of unrest.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that, if I were in particular, I can imagine
[SPEAKER_00]: right to his gods and sought their protection for his first born son, who himself was to become a god to Israel when he took over power.
[SPEAKER_00]: But all of their efforts would be of no veil because it was only in the blood of the land that had been offered to Yahweh was their salvation.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we see that also God had earlier assured Moses of this outcome when he first called a Moses to go back to Egypt into to confront Pharaoh back in chapter four in verse 22.
[SPEAKER_00]: It says that then you shall say to Pharaoh, thus says y'all way, Israel is my son, my
[SPEAKER_00]: So I said to you, let my son go that he may serve me, but you have refused to let him go.
[SPEAKER_00]: The whole hour will kill your son, your first born.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so we see God fulfilling exactly what he had predicted, what happened, and told Moses what happened, and he brought judgment that night, night upon Pharaoh, and the people of Egypt,
[SPEAKER_00]: as you think about the fear that Pharaoh had and the people had was because Israel had gotten so many people that they were afraid they were a threat to them and would rise up and maybe join their enemies and defeat them in battle.
[SPEAKER_00]: But God is one the victory here without a battle
[SPEAKER_00]: without doing anything, but just listening to what the Lord had said.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the Lord wins for them this victory.
[SPEAKER_00]: No more would Pharaoh resist the word of Moses and try to make bargains with God and try to change what God had said and said, no, I'll do this, but you can't do that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And just the very opposite happens, he compels Moses to leave.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the people to leave just says, God had said they were to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: Look again in verse 31, it says, then he summoned Moses in Aaron by night and said, up, go out from among my people, both you and the people of Israel and go.
[SPEAKER_00]: Serve the Lord as you have said, take your flocks and your herds as you have said,
[SPEAKER_00]: and bless me also in the Egyptians strongly press the people to send them out of the land and haste where they said, we will all be dead.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's interesting, those there in verse 32, that
[SPEAKER_00]: Fero requests the blessing for Moses, that's a surprising thing that you see as you read there.
[SPEAKER_00]: He says, you know, just leave, you know, take everything you want just the way you said it.
[SPEAKER_00]: and bless me also.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like it's a surprising thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: We see that God has humbled this mighty Pharaoh who's come in the beginning with all of his demands and says, I don't even know who this Yahweh is, but I'm not going to let you go.
[SPEAKER_00]: And now he asks for a blessing from Moses.
[SPEAKER_00]: And in
[SPEAKER_00]: They want a blessing from God, but they don't want God.
[SPEAKER_00]: They don't want Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: They don't want to submit themselves in genuine repentance and faith unto the Lord.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was just reminded that how many times I've met with people and they want God to help them, but they don't really want God.
[SPEAKER_00]: They want to fix.
[SPEAKER_00]: They want God to take away their problems or just fix them, but they really don't want to submit to God in a big God.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was so not long ago meeting with a young man.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he really needed help.
[SPEAKER_00]: He came to an end of himself.
[SPEAKER_00]: uh... gave him some homework to get say some scripture to read and uh... holding to be in search in the church in their area his area and uh... next week the week after that it is just a pattern and did you go to church
[SPEAKER_00]: Did you read your Bible?
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I tried to.
[SPEAKER_00]: Did you do the design work?
[SPEAKER_00]: Looking up Scripture and answering questions?
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, you know, that booklet was in the car, but I didn't quite get to it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I told him, you come to God and you want God to help you.
[SPEAKER_00]: the answer.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's given you help through his word.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's given you help through the people of God in the local church.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you have rejected what God has given you, but you say to God, God, I won't something else.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't want what you've given me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want something different,
[SPEAKER_00]: And in reality, we may not say it like that way, but sometimes we do that, don't we?
[SPEAKER_00]: We can see other people do that, but sometimes we do that.
[SPEAKER_00]: We say God, we pray and ask God to do things for us and then yet we don't make use of the means that is already provided for us.
[SPEAKER_00]: We don't submit ourselves to Him to obey Him, regardless of the answer that He gives us.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, this night of judgment is not just something that happened in the past.
[SPEAKER_00]: There is a time of judgment coming.
[SPEAKER_00]: God has announced the final day of judgment for all mankind.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you may be living today with no thought about the consequences of your sin, but God sees.
[SPEAKER_00]: And God one day will bring every thought he says into judgment, and every deed into judgment.
[SPEAKER_00]: You may be stubbornly resisting the will of God in your life, but God knows how to humble the proud.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just as he did with Pharaoh who resisted and were not listening, God humbled him and brought judgment upon him.
[SPEAKER_00]: Our only hope is in the Lord Jesus Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: We can look it for hope in different places, but it's only in Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that brings me to this second truth we see that this night was also a night of mercy.
[SPEAKER_00]: The same night when God brought judgment, he also showed mercy to his people by providing a way that the destroyer would pass over them so that their firstborn would not die.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have seen the means that God provided for this salvation was a substitute lamb that would be sacrificed and the blood of that lamb would be applied to the doorpost and the lentil of the house in which they were staying.
[SPEAKER_00]: In this lamb,
[SPEAKER_00]: We saw before, it was a foreshadowing.
[SPEAKER_00]: It looked forward to the coming of the Lamb of God, the Lord Jesus Christ who would give his life a ransom for all that would turn to the Lord and faith and belief in him to forgive and take away their sins.
[SPEAKER_00]: But this raises a question, and you may have given thought to it.
[SPEAKER_00]: This question about the justice and the righteousness of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: A God who could condemn some and pass over the judgment of others.
[SPEAKER_00]: Regardless of how moral we may be, we are all sinners worthy of the righteous judgment of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: God's righteousness, his holiness, demands our judgment.
[SPEAKER_00]: It demands judgment upon all sin, which is an offense to him and his righteousness.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the question is, how can God be just and still justify the guilty?
[SPEAKER_00]: was being tried for some crime, maybe murder and all the evidence was there.
[SPEAKER_00]: And in the end, he was found guilty.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the judge says, I think we should give him a pass on this.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, after all, he's a good person.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's a good neighbor.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this was just a one-time thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we'll just look over it, we'll give it a pass.
[SPEAKER_00]: You say, no, you can't do that.
[SPEAKER_00]: We might have said out loud, but we'd be thinking, that's not right.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can't do that.
[SPEAKER_00]: So how then can God justify the guilty, the sinners and still be righteous.
[SPEAKER_00]: We'll Paul in Romans chapter three answers that question.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you'd like to look with me, it's a rather, it's one of those typical Pauline kind of explanations that's a bit involved.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I want to turn and look at it.
[SPEAKER_00]: In Romans chapter three, beginning in verse 21, three verse 26, their Paul defends the righteousness of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he explains how God can be just
[SPEAKER_00]: Romans 3 verse 21.
[SPEAKER_00]: He begins by saying, are talking about the righteousness of God has been manifested.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's been revealed.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's been shown and he says, this righteousness of God comes apart from the law.
[SPEAKER_00]: These people were not declared righteous by keeping the law.
[SPEAKER_00]: But he also says there in verse 21 that the law and the prophets, in other words, all the Old Testament, gave witness to this righteousness.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then he says in verse 22 that even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe there's there's what he's talking about.
[SPEAKER_00]: He talks about the righteousness of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's given through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he says, for there is no distinction, verse 23, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: In other words, they're all guilty.
[SPEAKER_00]: The religious and the underligious.
[SPEAKER_00]: Those that have tried to be moral and keep commandments and to live in a certain religious way.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the people who have no concern about,
[SPEAKER_00]: those matters, totally pagan.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're all guilty.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so he goes on to say in verse 24 that they are justified, in other words, declared righteous.
[SPEAKER_00]: They are justified as a gift by his grace.
[SPEAKER_00]: So how does God do that?
[SPEAKER_00]: They're justified as a gift by his grace.
[SPEAKER_00]: He says through
[SPEAKER_00]: The redemption which is in Christ Jesus, redemption is a payment to set free.
[SPEAKER_00]: So there's part of the answer.
[SPEAKER_00]: The payment was made, but not by them.
[SPEAKER_00]: They were declared righteous because of the payment that was made by Christ as a gift from God in His grace.
[SPEAKER_00]: And God displayed publicly, the crucifixion of Christ was a public display, displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith.
[SPEAKER_00]: Propitiation is a word that just speaks of God being satisfied with the payment that
[SPEAKER_00]: satisfied in the payment made by the sinless son of God Jesus Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so that is how God can be just and justify the guilty.
[SPEAKER_00]: He says also in verse 25, for a demonstration of His righteousness.
[SPEAKER_00]: His righteousness and His mercy, that we could be forgiven, that we could be declared righteous, although we're guilty.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because we have received Christ, what Christ did for us in payment of our sin.
[SPEAKER_00]: Notice that last part of verse 25,
[SPEAKER_00]: in the forbearance of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: Forbearance means he's long suffering.
[SPEAKER_00]: He suffered long.
[SPEAKER_00]: He says in the forbearance of God, he passed over the sins previously committed.
[SPEAKER_00]: So as you think about this, Old Testament saints that believed in God,
[SPEAKER_00]: There was Old Testament, people who had faith in God and they believe God and they obeyed God, they brought their offerings to God out of faith and they recognized that this offering was a substitute for payment of their sin, God received that faith and declared them righteous
[SPEAKER_00]: He justified them, passed over, we could say, passed over their sin, because God looking forward to what the Lord Jesus Christ would do in the future, received their faith, and declared the embr purchase and anticipation of their sins being taken away by the offering of Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so those, those sacrificial offerings covered sin temporarily for past over until the coming of Christ who would take them away.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's why John would say behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: which satisfies the righteous demands of a Holy God.
[SPEAKER_00]: And because of Christ, God can justify he can declare righteous the one who turns to Christ in faith.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, that is the answer to the question of how can God be just and that's what he says at the end
[SPEAKER_00]: Have you noticed there at the end of verse 25?
[SPEAKER_00]: He says, or the demonstration of His righteousness at this present time, so that He would be just in the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, go back to Exodus 12, if you will.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I want you to see there
[SPEAKER_00]: The Lord gives Moses additional information about this Passover memorial, and it really this section from verse 43 to 51 is answering the question about the mixed multitude.
[SPEAKER_00]: Earlier in verse 38 he mentions how many of this multitude of people that had come out
[SPEAKER_00]: So, most agree that it would have been upwards of two million people that left Egypt, plus this mixed multitude of people that were not Jewish, and it's not specifically said who they were, but likely a number would have been Egyptians, some of the Israelites married
[SPEAKER_00]: that had become slaves, together with Israel, who left with Israel.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so later we get bits and pieces of information about this mixed multitude, some were believing, and some were not.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the question
[SPEAKER_00]: is answered here about them, can they protect in the Passover?
[SPEAKER_00]: So God is giving instructions for the future.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is going to be an annual memorial to what God did when they were delivered.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so God is giving them instructions about can these people be included in this Passover?
[SPEAKER_00]: And the answer really is that if a man,
[SPEAKER_00]: In faith, identifies himself with the people of God and the covenant that God made with Abraham through circumcision that they could.
[SPEAKER_00]: If they were joined to this community, they had become part of the community, they weren't just visiting for a time, whether they were slaves or were they were hard workers or
[SPEAKER_00]: foreigners or whoever they were, if they joined themselves to Israel, as the people of the community, and they had received circumcision as a sign of their faith in the promise of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: They wanted to be identified with God, then yes, they were to be treated just the same.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he makes a point.
[SPEAKER_00]: So there in the techniques, verse 49, he says there shall be one law for the native and for the stranger who sojourns among you.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so in earlier in verse 48, but no uncertain-sized person shall eat of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: No matter if their Israelites are not, they had to have been certain-sized
[SPEAKER_00]: as a sign of their faith going all the way back to Abraham and the promise that God gave to Abraham and Abraham covenant you remember.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so that was the requirement.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so God is is showing mercy also to foreigners, those that had come to God in such a way that identified
[SPEAKER_00]: And so they were to be included also in this memorial.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, thirdly, there's a truth here.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's maybe a minor point, but it's important, I think, that we make note of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was a night of watching this memorial that they were to look back upon.
[SPEAKER_00]: Moses makes a note about it about the Passover that it was a night of watching, he's actually seems to be making a play on this word watching in verse 42.
[SPEAKER_00]: Notice he says, it was a night of watching by the Lord to bring them out of the land of Egypt so that same night a night of watching kept to the Lord
[SPEAKER_00]: and sometimes that's where it is translated visual or to keep watch and so the idea is that since the Lord watched over them to keep them safe, they were to keep the memorial watching every year and remembering how the Lord had delivered them and so that's the idea of
[SPEAKER_00]: this impcess on remembering.
[SPEAKER_00]: And many times as you look and read through the history of Israel, God gives them things, memorials, signs, things to do to remember.
[SPEAKER_00]: And to call children to ask, why did you stack up these stones here?
[SPEAKER_00]: Things like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he says, so that you can teach them and tell them about what the Lord did.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the Lord wanted him to remember, remember his power, remember his mercy to save them out of their bondage in Egypt, which was in a court with the promise of Abraham, that that section there where he tells about how long they had been there.
[SPEAKER_00]: To the very day, those are all going back to the promise of God, the gave to Abraham.
[SPEAKER_00]: And reminding them that just as God had said, and told Abraham, was going to happen, God was faithful to His Word, and God does exactly what He says He's going to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so they were to look back and remember, and worship God for why did He had accomplished for them?
[SPEAKER_00]: And so they were to look back.
[SPEAKER_00]: But they were also to look forward because the promise to Abraham was a forward-looking promise that would ultimately find its fulfillment in the ultimate descendant of Abraham, the Lord Jesus Christ, through whom all the nations of the earth would be blessed.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Paul makes a point of that in Galatians.
[SPEAKER_00]: Where he reminds them that he,
[SPEAKER_00]: when he made that promise to Abraham, he said, descendant singular, or seed singular, not plural.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because he's looking ahead to the promise of the one that would come, it would be the one that would bless the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so that is how the Abraham, all the nations of the earth would be blessed is through that descendant
[SPEAKER_00]: And so it's a forward-looking memorial.
[SPEAKER_00]: And when we get to the New Testament, we realize that the Lord has also given the church memorials to in particular baptism and the Lord's supper, so that we too might remember and think about
[SPEAKER_00]: the work of God, and the New Testament, all four of the gospel writers given a count of the last Passover, the last Passover meal, and when Jesus held that meal with His disciples there in that upper room, that was the last time before His death that He would have a meal with
[SPEAKER_00]: And Luke chapter 22 verse 15 says, Hmm.
[SPEAKER_00]: As Jesus says, I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer.
[SPEAKER_00]: Or I tell you, I will not eat it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's a strong statement there, a definitive kind of statement about I have earnestly desired.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's words used twice in a row, which literally means I have desired with desire.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've earnestly desired, so it's meant to convey the depth of this longing or desire they had to have this last pass over with this disciples and we could ask, why is it so important?
[SPEAKER_00]: Why have put the emphasis on this desire that he had?
[SPEAKER_00]: And you could probably give many reasons, but
[SPEAKER_00]: And the significance of the Passover was about to be fulfilled in himself because on the very next day he would down the cross and fulfill what the Passover had foreshadowed in this substitutionary atonement of Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: create a new memorial for them and although at the time they would not they would not comprehend the significance of what he was teaching but later they would be able to look back upon it and understand it and so it would have great meaning for them as well and so Christ's work of redemption was completed on the cross and so and that it fulfilled
[SPEAKER_00]: what the Passover had foreshadowed and had led Israel to look forward to and long for, although they wouldn't fully comprehend all that Christ would do.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we also see that in the Lord's salvation that He provided there on the cross,
[SPEAKER_00]: as you can imagine, we're setting here and not with heaven with the Lord.
[SPEAKER_00]: It will not be complete until we're with Him in His kingdom.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so one day we will be with Him and the expectations that Scripture has talked about throughout the Scriptures one day we will fully realize when we are with Him.
[SPEAKER_00]: The last Passover then becomes the first Lord's supper in that night when Christ met with his disciples and established what Paul calls the Lord's supper in one Corinthians chapter 11.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you'd like to turn there, I want to look at that passage a bit.
[SPEAKER_00]: One Corinthians chapter 11, their Paul calls it the Lord's supper.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes it's referred to his communion often, we'll use that language of communion because earlier in chapter 10, Paul makes reference to the bread and the wine as communion or fellowship with the Lord.
[SPEAKER_00]: Communion comes from this this idea of fellowship and communion.
[SPEAKER_00]: We commune with the Lord and together, as we as we meet together like you like you as you meet in a normal meal setting You you you're together.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a type of fellowship
[SPEAKER_00]: It's also sometimes you've heard the word Eucharist, probably, based on what your background has been, Eucharist is simply the Greek, come from the Greek word that means to give thanks.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you see the repetition of that, in all of the accounts that the Lord, when He broke the bread, when He poured the drink, He gave thanks.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so that's where that word comes from.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so just as the memorial of the Passover was referred to as the Lord's Passover, so also the memorial of the Communion is referred to as the Lord's Supper.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not really the churches, it's the Lord's.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it is to be received and regarded with reverence and joy.
[SPEAKER_00]: which we have been forgiven, and so there's the joy.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not a morbid kind of memorial, but reverent.
[SPEAKER_00]: So reverence with joy, because of what the Lord has accomplished in it for us.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so Paul, in one Corinthians 11, and if you've turned there,
[SPEAKER_00]: And one Corinthians 11, and if you can find your place there, Paul is correcting some problems as one Corinthians does.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's correcting problems in the church.
[SPEAKER_00]: This church has many problems and many central and selfish attitudes.
[SPEAKER_00]: And one of those surfaced in this memorial,
[SPEAKER_00]: In the beginning, it was the custom to have a meal together and then attached to that meal would be this memorial of the Lord's table.
[SPEAKER_00]: But these believers were coming together and revealing the selfishness that was in their hearts.
[SPEAKER_00]: And in this church was divisions and fighting over different things and just not the unity that should be there because we all belong to Christ, we've all trusted him.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so Paul is a reprimanding them, he's admonishing them because of their attitude.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he's saying that they have complete disregard for what
[SPEAKER_00]: This memorial was meant to illustrate and to signify.
[SPEAKER_00]: They were selfishly, they can imagine having a church fellowship meal, were you bring food in your share?
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, some who had plenty were not concerned about other people, it didn't have anything.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so it was totally opposite of what Christ died for.
[SPEAKER_00]: Christ died that we would be redeemed, and that we would be saved in forgiven, and that we would also demonstrate that same kind of love and compassion in caring for one another, and that his body, the body of local believers would illustrate and demonstrate that kind of love for one another.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the church at Corinth was doing exactly the opposite.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so instead of honoring the Lord, they were bringing reproach upon the name of the Lord and what he did on the cross.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so that is why, from verse 27, he says, let a person examine himself.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's warning them,
[SPEAKER_00]: because of the way that they were dishonoring God in this memorial.
[SPEAKER_00]: He says in verse 27, whoever therefore eats this bread or drinks this cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord.
[SPEAKER_00]: Be hard to say it much more stern and direct than that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the unworthy manner, some have misunderstood that to mean that before you take communion, you have to be worthy, in order you have to be like holy and there can't be anything that's not right or you have to be just like a super saint before you can take the communion.
[SPEAKER_00]: In other words, if you came to church and you are arguing with your wife, you can't take communion, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Or if you, you know, just just not right in some way with the Lord, you shouldn't take communion.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's really not what his point is here.
[SPEAKER_00]: His point is the manner in which you're receiving it.
[SPEAKER_00]: When you take the commune and you should be thinking about what the Lord did and what he did for the church and what our attitude should be towards him and towards one another.
[SPEAKER_00]: So he's correcting a wrong way in which they were receiving this meal and they were dishonoring the Lord to the degree that he says you're guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord.
[SPEAKER_00]: different opinions about what he exactly has in mind there, but it seems to be saying that you think about the crucifixion of Christ and the disgrace that that was and to him, the dishonor to him, if you are taking this meal,
[SPEAKER_00]: the way you are without having regard for one another and love for one another, and honoring the Lord, then you're just like those people who put Him on the cross.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're like those people who press the thorns down into His brow and beating, you're dishonoring Him.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so when we take the communion, it is to honor the Lord and rejoice in what He has accomplished.
[SPEAKER_00]: not to dishonor him by our bad attitudes and our unforgiveness and our resentment and our selfishness and all of those things.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so when we come to that table, he says in verse 28, let a person examine himself then and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup for anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body, eats and drinks judgment on himself.
[SPEAKER_00]: First 29, he's saying when we come to eat the first judge you're on heart, and it's a good time to confess sin, turn from wrong attitudes, and when we have those around us that we need to make right, if things we need to confess, things that we need to say,
[SPEAKER_00]: As soon as we can, we did resolve in our heart, that's what we're going to do, as soon as we get opportunity.
[SPEAKER_00]: But first and foremost, to be right with the Lord, and not beholding any unconfessed sins in our heart.
[SPEAKER_00]: But as he says here, discerning the body in verse 29, we're not exactly sure
[SPEAKER_00]: If he means the body of Christ, or if he means the body of the church, because in the context he's talking about how that they are treating each other, he's correcting that, but he's also talking about the body of Christ, and so there may be illusion to both.
[SPEAKER_00]: I, because here he only talks about the body and not the blood, I'm inclined to, to wait the body of Christ, and we're thinking about one another, and we're coming together and not caring for one another.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I believe he's admonishing them certainly to give that thought also in the way we come together.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so he says in verse 30, and says, that is why many of you, in other words, the way in which they have disregarded the Lord and what He did for us, that is why many of you are weak and ill and some have died.
[SPEAKER_00]: But if we judge ourselves truly, we would not be judged.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then in verse 32, he explains to us someone think that because of this, they are condemned, knows they would die and go to hell.
[SPEAKER_00]: They lose their salvation, which scripture declares, will not happen to a genuine believer.
[SPEAKER_00]: He says, but when we are judged by the Lord, and there's we as believers, genuine believers,
[SPEAKER_00]: so that we may not be condemned along with the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you see the distinction between those who belong to the Lord and those who do not.
[SPEAKER_00]: And God judges us.
[SPEAKER_00]: He disciplines us like a father who loves his child and brings discipline upon them so that they would do right.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that they would turn from their wrong way of doing and thinking and turn to the right.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the world will be condemned.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so he makes a distinction between them.
[SPEAKER_00]: Even in death, some had died because of their way that they were treating one another.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Judge, my God, killed them, but that doesn't mean they're condemned.
[SPEAKER_00]: It just means that God brought an end to their life, which was a form of judgment before the way they were acting.
[SPEAKER_00]: We see that there is a seriousness to this memorial, but there's also a great joy to it.
[SPEAKER_00]: For those of us who love the Lord and we want to honor Him, we are certainly imperfect.
[SPEAKER_00]: We are not worthy.
[SPEAKER_00]: We are not worthy of the Lord, and of His grace, and that's why it's grace, because we do not deserve it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so he's not talking about people who are worthy.
[SPEAKER_00]: Only the Lord Jesus Christ is worthy.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we can come and we can receive this memorial because He is worthy.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's the whole purpose, isn't it?
[SPEAKER_00]: He is worthy.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we have received Him.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we want to honor Him.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we want to rejoice in what He has done for us.
[SPEAKER_00]: Father's, we come today.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we think about this memorial that you gave
[SPEAKER_00]: and how that they were to look back and remember and they were also to look forward an expectation of a coming deliverer.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll Lord, we thank you that you have taken this Passover memorial and you have created from it a memorial for the church.
[SPEAKER_00]: that we might also look back and remember what you have done for us in the Lord Jesus Christ, and that we also can look forward to the completion of your redemption, your salvation in us.
[SPEAKER_00]: We might be with you in your kingdom.
[SPEAKER_00]: We might be glorified in your presence.
[SPEAKER_00]: We look forward to that day when we will again fellowship with you in person, what a joy it is Father to belong to you and we thank you for that.
[SPEAKER_00]: We come before you today in this service.
[SPEAKER_00]: I pray for each one.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know the heart's Lord.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know who are each person needs our troubles and trials.
[SPEAKER_00]: Each one faces.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we commit them to you, Father, and pray that you might accomplish your purposes in your will and each heart and each life.
[SPEAKER_00]: We ask, can Jesus name, Amen.