Love Worth Finding

Adrian Rogers: We as Christians have reason to celebrate Passover. Did you know that Christians are to celebrate Passover? Where to keep Passover? How do we keep Passover? When we come to the Lord's Table, when we have the Lord's Supper, we're keeping the feast. Friend, when we come to the Lord's Table, we're not coming to mourn a corpse; we're coming to hail a Conqueror. Jesus Christ has defeated the old serpent, and we celebrate. Of all people, we ought to celebrate.

Guest (Male): Welcome to Love Worth Finding, featuring the insightful teaching and biblical lessons of Adrian Rogers. The Passover was first introduced in the book of Exodus. The Israelites sacrificed a lamb and painted its blood on their doorposts. This sacrificial lamb had to be spotless in order to cause the death angel to pass over their homes.

In part one of today's lesson, we learned that through this tradition, God taught His people one of the fundamental truths of His word: without shedding of blood, there is no remission of sins. The Passover is a prophetic picture of Calvary, in which Jesus was our sacrificial lamb without spot or blemish. If you have your Bible, turn to Hebrews 11, verse 28, as Adrian Rogers shares part two of "Redeeming Faith."

Adrian Rogers: Would you open the word of God to Hebrews chapter 11? We are going to spend some time together enjoying the word of God. We're in a series of Bible studies entitled "Champions of Faith." Today, we're talking about the redeeming blood of Jesus Christ. We're going to help you to understand something of the power of faith in the shed blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now, look if you will here in Hebrews chapter 11 and verse 28. It speaks of Moses, and it says through faith he kept the Passover and the sprinkling of blood, lest he that destroyed the firstborn should touch them. Now, that's just a verse of Scripture unless you get it in context. Let me give you the context. The children of Israel are in bondage. They're down in Egypt. They'd gone down into Egypt in a time of famine.

They stayed down there, and now old Pharaoh has them as his slaves. They're making bricks without straw day after day under the cruel taskmaster and under the lash of the lictor. They are working night and day in bondage. But God is going to deliver them. God is going to bring them out, and God brings them out in a night called the night of the Passover.

What is the Passover? Well, God had told the children of Israel, the Jews, that he's going to send an angel through the land of Egypt and that angel would be a death angel. The firstborn in every family would be slain that night—a terrible, horrible thing—but there was an exception. God said to His people, if you will take a lamb, a spotless lamb, take the blood of that lamb, and put it upon the doorpost of your house and upon the lintel of that house.

When the death angel comes through the land, he's going to be looking for the blood. God says when he sees the blood, he will pass over you, hence Passover. Now, Passover is all about a lamb. A little lamb was slain. We all love lambs. We call our babies little lambs. I have a granddaughter whose name is Rachel, which means little lamb—cuddly, little white lamb.

Is there anything more tender, anything more gentle, anything more helpless than a little lamb? A little lamb seems to say, "Are you hungry? Kill me and eat me. Are you cold? Then shear me and make some wool. Keep yourself warm." If you kill a lamb, the lamb will hardly make a sound. The lamb seems to be defenseless. It can't butt; it can hardly run on its wobbly little legs. It has no claws to fight with; it has no incisor teeth to bite with. He just almost presents himself to death.

Now, God, listen, God is going to use a lamb to deliver His people. Now, where are they? They are in the land of Egypt. In the Bible, Egypt stands for bondage. It stands for the world, the flesh, and the devil. Pharaoh himself is a type, a picture, and an illustration of the devil—Pharaoh, of course, the king of Egypt.

Now, old Pharaoh had a crown, and on his crown was a serpent, right there on his crown is a serpent. You look at some of those ancient Egyptian pictures and look and you'll see a serpent coiled up there. That's the symbol of Egypt. Here you have the serpent; over here you have the lamb. Now, it's the lamb who's going to defeat the serpent. That's what Passover is all about.

God is going to bring His people from the land of bondage, from the land of wickedness, from the land of sin, from the land of cruelty. God is going to deliver them, and God is going to do it with a lamb—a Passover lamb. Now, keep all of that in mind and let's look at the first point. All right, now here's the first thing. We're going to see the prophetic anticipation of Calvary's sacrifice.

Calvary is not an afterthought. It is not an emergency matter. Calvary in anticipation was in the heart and mind of Almighty God. Now, this Passover lamb, a spotless lamb, a sacrificial lamb, a saving lamb, a shared lamb—that, friend, is Calvary in anticipation. Isn't the Bible a wonderful book?

Now, let's see the promised consummation of Calvary's sacrifice. That lamb only prophesied that Jesus would come and die for us upon the cross. Jesus is the Lamb of God. John the Baptist, who was the forerunner of the Lord Jesus Christ, saw Jesus coming when John was down by Jordan baptizing the people. He saw Jesus coming and John said, "That's Him. Behold, the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world."

You know, Moses knew. He understood that all of this was only prophecy. John the Baptist knew and understood that all of the Old Testament was only prophecy concerning Jesus who would come. Now, let's see how Jesus compares to the Passover lamb. The Passover lamb was a spotless lamb. Jesus was a spotless lamb.

1 Peter 1, verses 18 and 19: "Forasmuch as ye know ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers; but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot." Do you see how it ties together? God said to Moses, "Moses, take a lamb."

That's Moses' lamb. This is Mary's lamb. Mary had a little lamb. His fleece was white as snow, as a lamb without spot and without blemish. Jesus was a spotless lamb. Now, you remember that they took that little Passover lamb and they kept that Passover lamb up for three days. Why did they have that Passover lamb for three days? So he could be examined.

If there was any flaw, anything wrong with him, they would find it within three days. Have you ever wondered why so much of the Gospels is given to the last week of Jesus' life? At least a third of the Gospels is given to the last week—most of it to the last three days. Why? Because this little lamb is being examined—God's Lamb.

In the Old Testament, they began to breed Passover lambs because to find a perfect lamb was difficult. So they had a special group of shepherds who would breed lambs, and these lambs were Passover lambs, and they would be bred, do you know where? In Bethlehem, in the fields of Bethlehem. That's where they bred these Passover lambs—perfect lambs.

Those little lambs in Bethlehem were not ordinary lambs. They were born to die. They were Passover lambs. I believe it was to those kind of shepherds that the angel appeared and told about Mary's lamb, and they went on Christmas to go see Mary's little lamb, that baby that was born there in the stable. These shepherds had these Passover lambs, these little lambs.

Then came Passover week. They would bring the lambs from Bethlehem where Jesus was born, down about five miles to Jerusalem, and they would bring them in through the Sheep Gate up to the Temple Mount. There the priest would examine those lambs to make certain that they were absolutely without blemish. Now, at the same time that those shepherds were bringing those Passover lambs to the Temple Mount, Jesus was coming into the Temple Mount.

We call it Palm Sunday. You remember that? Where they were saying, "Hosanna, Hosanna," and they were throwing down their clothes and palm branches and Jesus is riding a donkey. Jesus comes through the Eastern Gate up to the Temple Mount, and those lambs are coming in. Now, they're examining the lambs and Jesus is being examined those last three days.

He's being examined by the Sadducees and the Pharisees and the Herodians and the priest, and they're carping at Him and they're criticizing Him, and the civil authorities are looking at Jesus Christ, trying to find some fault in Him. But old Pilate said, "I find no fault in Him. I find no fault in Him." Everything that they said about Him was a lie.

Jesus Christ could say to them, "Which of you convinceth me of sin?" He was a perfect lamb. He's being examined there because he was going to die. This sacrificial lamb is going to die for their sins. Now, Jesus goes out to Gethsemane. But before he goes to Gethsemane, he says to his disciples, "We're going to celebrate the Passover." Now, think about it. It's all about Jesus.

And Jesus says, "Go prepare the Passover feast." We call it the Last Supper. It was a Passover. So they go to that upper room. You remember the story. Jesus gathers his disciples and the Bible says he takes bread and he blesses it and he breaks it and he gives it to his disciples and he says, "Take, eat. It's my body which is broken for you."

Now, for three centuries, the Jews had developed a tradition. They would take a piece of cloth, a bag called a matzo-tash, and would have three sections in it—top, middle, and bottom. In the middle section would be a piece of bread. The father in the family at Passover would reach into that middle section, pull out the piece of bread, break it, and give it to all of those around. It's still done in seder suppers today.

Now, Jesus reaches in and takes that middle piece of unleavened bread. It has been baked, it has been broken, it has been pierced, and Jesus says, "This is my body." The middle piece. For centuries, the Jews had held the Trinity in their hands: Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. He takes that middle piece and he breaks it and he distributes it, and then he takes the rest of it and he wraps it in a linen cloth and he hides it.

Our Jewish friends still do that today. It's hidden. It is, as it were, buried, because the children go to try to find that later on. It is buried. Now, the Bible says that night that Jesus blessed the bread. Matthew 26, verse 26: "And as they were eating, Jesus took bread and blessed it and brake it and gave to the disciples and said, 'Take, eat. This is my body.'"

Did you know that when Jesus blessed that bread, not only was he in the breaking of the bread showing his death, but he was also showing his resurrection? Do you know what the blessing is at the Passover? Do you know what is said when that bread is taken out? Here it is: "Blessed art Thou, oh Lord our God, King of the universe, who bringeth forth bread from the earth."

Jesus here is prophesying his resurrection. He is the bread broken that's going to come from the earth. This is my body from the ground; it is going to be raised. Then Jesus goes, and where does he go? He goes from there to judgment and to crucifixion on Mount Moriah. If you've been with us in this series, you remember when Abraham took Isaac where?

Mount Moriah. God said, "Abraham, Abraham, you can't offer Isaac just anyplace. You take him to the place that I will show you, and there you offer him." But you remember that Isaac didn't have to die. And why did Isaac not have to die? Because God had prepared a substitute for Isaac there on Mount Moriah.

But that, too, was just prophecy because Isaac said to Abraham, "Father, here's the wood, here's the fire, but where is the sacrifice?" And Abraham said, "God will provide himself a lamb. God will provide himself a lamb." And he did, and His name is Jesus. God will provide himself a lamb. Where did Jesus die?

Jesus died upon that same spot that had been prophesied so long ago. Do you think it is by incident or accident? Do you think it just happened that all of this came together? And there on bloody Calvary, Mount Moriah, Jesus, the Son of God, was crucified, nailed up on the cross. At 3:00 PM, all of those Passover lambs are there.

The Levites have sharpened their knives. As they tilt the throat back and the blood spurts from the necks of those little lambs, at that same time, the Son of God, God's Lamb, is upon the cross and he bows his head and he says, "It is finished. It is done." Levites, you can go home. We don't need you anymore. Priest, we don't need you anymore.

Passover shepherds, we don't need you anymore. That is all anticipation. Calvary is consummation. There it's done. It is finished. It is paid in full because God's spotless lamb has been God's sacrificial lamb who's now God's saving lamb and now he becomes God's shared lamb. Because just as they fed on that lamb so long ago, we feed on the Lord Jesus Christ day by day.

That's why we have the Lord's Supper to remind us of that. Now, here's the third and final thing, and I have just a few moments for that, but notice the perpetual celebration of Calvary's sacrifice. We talked about anticipation, consummation, now here's celebration. We keep the Passover. 1 Corinthians 5, verses 7 and 8, Paul is talking to the Corinthian church:

"Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us." If some of you think that I'm far-fetched and reading too much into it, so did Paul. "Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us. Therefore, let us keep the feast." Where to keep Passover?

How do we keep Passover? When we come to the Lord's Table, when we have the Lord's Supper, we're keeping the feast. Let us keep the feast not with old leaven, neither the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. That's why we use unleavened bread in the Lord's Supper.

Leaven, I told you, yeast, represents sin that works quietly and stealthily, and this unleavened bread represents the pure body, the sinless Son of God, and we're to keep the feast with unleavened bread. The Jews, when they have the seder, the Passover, they have a little game. The father will take some crumbs of leavened bread—some cookies or some cake—and maybe put it on the mantle or in the bookshelf or under the couch.

And the little kids burst into the room to try to find a crumb of leaven in the house. And they say, "Papa, Papa, there's some leaven bread." And father comes in with a feather and a wooden spoon and gets it, carries it to the fire, and throws it in. Why? Because it had to be no leaven in the house when you take the Passover.

What is God saying to us when we come to the Lord's Table? How do we come? With clean hearts. No unconfessed, no unrepented of sin because we are celebrating the Lord's Passover. We're celebrating what the spotless, sinless Son of God did for us. Listen to the Scripture, 1 Corinthians 11, verses 23 through 26.

Paul said, "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 brake it and said, 'Take, eat. This is my body which is broken for you. This do in remembrance of me.' After the same manner also he took the cup when he had supped, saying, 'This cup is the New Testament, the new covenant in my blood.

This do ye as oft as ye drink it in remembrance of me. For as often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord's death...'" Hallelujah, "...till he come." Till he come! We are celebrating. Friend, when we come to the Lord's Table, we're not coming to mourn a corpse; we're coming to hail a Conqueror.

Jesus Christ has defeated the old serpent. The lamb has slain the serpent, and we celebrate. Of all people, we ought to celebrate. I'm telling you, precious friend, the little children would find that piece of matzo wrapped in linen hidden somewhere, maybe under a cushion. And when a child finds it, he says, "I've found it! Here it is!"

He doesn't know it, but he's celebrating the resurrection of Jesus Christ. That buried bread wrapped in linen coming up out of the earth. Isn't the Bible a wonderful book? I mean, when you think of how God put all of this together, how God tied it all together, I love Jesus. I love Him with all of my heart. I love Him.

And I thank God for the precious blood of Jesus. Now, in the Old Testament, they put the blood upon the doorpost. In the New Testament, we confess Christ openly as our Savior. If you're not saved, you need to be. By the way, if you're not saved, you have nothing to celebrate. All you can look forward to is the death angel, because the death angel will not pass over you if the blood has not been applied.

So how do you apply the blood? By faith. By faith. By faith. "Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God." Would you pray like this? "Lord Jesus, I am a sinner, and I'm lost and I need to be saved, and I want to be saved. Jesus, you shed your blood for me. Thank you for doing that. I believe that God raised you from the dead, and now I receive you into my heart as my Lord and Savior. Forgive my sin and save me, Jesus. And Lord Jesus, help me never ever to be ashamed of you. Amen."

Guest (Male): Amen. And if you've prayed to receive Jesus just now, we would love to celebrate with you. Go to our website and click the tab that says "Find God's Love." You'll discover answers you may need about your newfound faith. Go to lwf.org/radio and click "Find God's Love." Welcome to His forever family. We can't wait to hear from you today.

Hi, this is Cary Vaughn, and this program has been brought to you by Love Worth Finding, a nonprofit ministry showcasing the powerful preaching and teaching of Pastor Adrian Rogers. We operate solely through the generous gifts of individual supporters just like you. To give a gift today, call 1-877-LOVEGOD. That's 1-877-LOVEGOD. Or write to us at Love Worth Finding, Box 38-600, Memphis, Tennessee 38183.

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