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Christ Our Passover
Bill Stafford

Bill Stafford (January 15, 1933 – September 15, 2019) was an American preacher and evangelist whose dynamic ministry within the Southern Baptist Convention spanned over six decades, marked by a passion for revival and global outreach. Born in Whitwell, Tennessee, to a Christian family, he was saved at age 12 in a Baptist church but rebelled as a teenager, dreaming of becoming a comedian inspired by Red Skelton. Surrendering to preach at 19 after growing weary of running from God, he began his ministry, which included singing with his mother in church as a youth—an early sign of his engaging style. He served as pastor of Harmony Grove Baptist Church in Blairsville, Georgia, among other roles, before embracing full-time evangelism. Stafford’s preaching career took him to thousands worldwide, preaching up to 60 meetings annually in places like South Africa, Ireland, Australia, and Europe as President of the International Congress on Revival, a role he assumed in 1990 after Manley Beasley’s death. Known as “Wild Bill” for his animated delivery—making audiences laugh one minute and cry the next—he taught sacrificial giving and Christ’s sufficiency, notably at North Metro Baptist Church in Lawrenceville, Georgia. Inducted into the Southern Baptist Evangelists Hall of Faith in 2008, he married Sue, with whom he shared a daughter, Debbie, and two grandchildren. He died in Chattanooga, Tennessee, at 86, his boots-on legacy preserved through friendships with pastors like Frank Cox and his unwavering gospel focus despite late-life dementia.
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In this sermon, the preacher expresses his excitement and passion for the simple truths of the Word of God, particularly when it comes to Jesus, the Lamb, God's provisions, and His power. He emphasizes the importance of obedience, commitment, loyalty, and recognizing that believers belong to God because they have been bought with a price. The preacher then focuses on the significance of the Lamb in the Passover, highlighting that it had to be without blemish and that its blood was shed for the deliverance of the Israelites from Egyptian bondage. He concludes by emphasizing the incredible love of God demonstrated through Jesus' sacrifice on the cross and encourages the congregation to choose to love God and abide in His Word.
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1 Corinthians 5 and verse 7, and here's what it says, Christ, our Passover, is sacrificed for us. Immediately, when we come to the word Passover, we are reminded of Exodus chapter 12. Since I've been dealing all week with the blood covenant, dealing with the covenant relationship that God brought us into, when he brought us into relationship with the Holy God, that getting saved, listen to me, getting saved is a walk into death. Every person that gets saved walks into death, crucified with Christ. You know, so many people say to me, Brother Bill, that sure is deep preaching you've done. My Lord, folks, I don't see anything deep about what I've said. I think it's a simple matter of just finding out from the word of God what we are and just believing it. What's so complicated about believing the Bible? What's so hard about biblical truth? We've got the greatest teacher the world's ever known in the Holy Ghost, who promised to guide us into all truth. Is that right? That's why we've got so many Bible translations. Now, we're trying to bring the Bible down to an intellectual level to where men and women can read it without any spiritual interpretation. And what a tragedy when we've got so many translations trying to make the Bible so understandable when we've got the greatest teacher in the world residing in us to bring us to the truth of the word of God. I'm almost convinced that many people that even attend a jubilee like this do not attend it because they're saved. They attend it because they just like the atmosphere. Amen. Am I right? Ladies and gentlemen, I cannot believe that a man can sit on the pews and hear the simplicity of the word of God and say that's too deep when we've got a holy God living in us to reveal truth to us beyond our capacity to understand it intellectually. Amen? I am not limited to my intellect. I am limited to the revelation of the Holy Ghost who will bring truth to me and make it come alive. We've been talking about covenant relationship and I'm not going to talk about that tonight and I guess some of you are glad. But I want to wind up tonight just talking about the precious blood of the Lord Jesus or life through the Lamb. Christ, our Passover, is sacrificed for us. You've never lived until you wake up to the fact that we're facing one of the hardest tasks in our life especially in many denominations and that is confronting liberals. You don't understand what liberalism is and how mean and wicked and hellish it is until you're in the battle face to face and nose to nose and watch men so intellectually use persuasion to bypass the virgin birth and the deity of Christ and the literal substitutionary sacrifice of Jesus. And let me tell you something, dear friends, I'm not so sure that most people know what's really real until the test comes to where you have to stand nose to nose with an ungodly man who uses the Bible to his advantage to preach a social gospel and has got it down so well that you have to stand and he'll try to make a fool out of you because he's so intellectual and you're trying to talk on a spiritual basis. But brother, you can't intimidate a man who knows where he stands on the word of God and believes the Bible is the word of God. You see, I don't have to convince anybody. That's the Holy Ghost's job. But I am convinced and hell can't change me. Amen? And I'd hate to go to bed at night and not know that the blood of Jesus Christ is necessary to give me life. And through the blood of Jesus I have life and I have it abundantly. And I want you to know, Philip, before the foundation of the world Jesus lay as a lamb slain. In the book of Genesis he is literally began as the bloodline typified in the animal that was slain to cover the naked bodies exposed sinful bodies of Adam and Eve. And then on through the book of Exodus it comes to this point. Then we go into Isaiah 53 where again the lamb is led to the slaughter. We move on through the word of God and the Old Testament closes. But the New Testament opens with a fresh promise that the Messiah the blood is still going to be shed. John the Baptist announced him as the Lamb of God that will take away the sin of the world. Then we come on to Calvary where God's Lamb and God himself makes a covenant to where Jesus can become the mercy seat for every sinner that will want to come to be saved. In Exodus chapter 12 we have the Passover. And beginning at verse 1 here's what the Lord said. And the Lord spake unto Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying, This month shall be unto you the beginning of months. It shall be the first month of the year to you. Speak ye unto all the congregation of Israel, saying, In the tenth day of this month they shall take to them every man a lamb, according to the house of their fathers, a lamb for a house. And if the household be too little for the lamb, let him and his neighbor next unto his house take it. According to the number of the souls, every man according to his eating shall make your count for the lamb. And then verse 5 he goes on to start explaining what kind of lamb he expects. The first thing I want you to notice is deciding upon the lamb. Do you know that the lamb here in Exodus 12 had to be selected according to God's standards? And that's what makes me know that what's happening here is beginning a bloodline of types that we can see Jesus. You know, the only thing that makes the Bible come alive is finding Jesus on every page. If you can't find Jesus on every page, the Bible becomes a dead book. Because without him, the Bible is just another piece of literature. It is just another bunch of psychology. You see, when we face or when we come into encounter what liberalism really is, here's what we find out. That liberalism really believes that the Bible is right when it speaks in relation to redemption. But they do not believe the Bible is right in any other area. Ladies and gentlemen, I happen to believe that the Bible is right when it speaks to science. I happen to believe the Bible is right when it speaks to philosophy. I believe the Bible is right when it speaks to salvation. I believe the Bible is right when it speaks to biology. I believe the Bible is right when it speaks to economics. Amen? I happen to believe that everything in this Bible from Genesis to Revelation is the inerrant Word of God that centers around the redemptive plan of God in Jesus Christ. Amen? Now, a sane man walking with Jesus, only the Bible can stay alive and real to him. And another reason why I love to preach these truths, it's time we get back to getting people excited about the basics. I'm so tired of going to church and having to have another sermon on how and when and what and steps and plans. I want to go to church once again and just hear a preacher so convinced that the Bible is the Word of God that when he preaches it, he convinces me over again. And even the simple truths of the Word of God thrills my hungry heart again when he talks about Jesus, when he talks about the Lamb, when he talks about God's provisions, when he talks about God's power and when he talks about blood covenant and my relationship to God which demands obedience, commitment, loyalty, lordship. I'm not mahoned. I'm bought with a price, overwhelmed with the love of God. Lord, give us more preachers that make simple truths come alive and bring me in love with Jesus once again. Deciding upon the Lamb. This was a Lamb selected by God's standards and here's what God says about it. It's got to be a perfect Lamb. That's what he said in verse 5. The Lamb shall be without blemish. It's got to be a perfect Lamb. 2 Corinthians 5, 21. And he hath made him to be sin for us, whom you know sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. What a truth. R.G. Lee was asked, if you had one sermon to preach to the whole world, what would you preach? He said 2 Corinthians 5, 21. God made Jesus to be sin for me, though he were a perfect Lamb, so that I could be perfect righteousness imputed as a result of the perfect Lamb. Glory to God. You know, every day that I live, I thank God that I don't have any righteousness. I'm so glad I don't have any righteousness except his. You see, I've met God's standards. Do you know how I met it? In the perfect Lamb that went to the cross as my substitute and as a life-giving spirit raised from the dead, he's able to impart and impute to me God's righteousness. And I want you to know, I've been saved for 42 years, preaching for 35 years, and I don't have any more righteousness than I had the day I got saved. I was as righteous the day I got saved as I am now. You say, well, I thought you'd be more righteous. Oh, you can't get any more righteous than what you got when you met the Lamb of God and the perfect Lamb bestowed on you, the very righteousness of Jesus Christ. Listen, do you realize that that ought to make every Baptist that's saved have at least a Methodist spell? You can at least say, whoo, you know, even if you have to muffle it, holler something. Amen. You see, ladies and gentlemen, I stand before you tonight and I looked at myself the other day without Jesus Christ and I'm as black and dirty and rotten as ever. And when I get to glory, I still won't have any seniority. Nobody will be thumbing their lapels and say I'm a Baptist. I've got badges to my shins of Sunday school attendance. I've got vacation Bible school certificates stacked in my closet. I've got gold seals of training union devotions. There won't be nobody like that. Everybody that will be walking in the glory will be singing, thank God for the perfect Lamb who made it possible for God to meet me at the mercy seat. Perfect Lamb. Then he was the proven Lamb. He said on the 10th day, isolate that Lamb. Isolate that Lamb. Oh, thank God, when Jesus stepped on the shores of Jericho and John the Baptist said here he is and John baptized him, that's the beginning of his earthly ministry when he would really go into the scrutiny of the whole religious system. And for three and a half years, the world watched him. The Pharisees scrutinized him. The Sadducees watched him. The whole world tried to find something wrong with him and the only thing they could charge him with was the only thing that he couldn't help but do and that is he claims to be one with God. He says he's equal to the Father. He says he's one with God. And let me tell you something, ladies and gentlemen, it won't take much more to turn America to where a good Christian testimony could land you in jail if you keep overriding people's rights just being a Christian. Well, they may come a day when we may be forced to jail for not ordaining women to the ministry because of equal rights. Hey, we're on a toboggan sled of trouble. They might come a day when homosexual rights will be so escalated that we'll be put to prison for not ordaining homosexuals to the ministry. Amen? Don't you sit there and look at me like that. Don't look at me like that. I never thought I'd be living in the day of filth and ungodliness that I'm living in now. I never thought it could happen in America and come to find out it's been going on in the closets for years and years and years and we're in... Listen, it's not... Listen, it's not the exaltation of sin that's killing us. It is the normalization of it. What do you mean? We're no longer an immoral society. We're a non-moral society. Amen? Why? Everything's all right. No matter what you do, do it. Where does all that come from? A defiant rejection of the word of God as the rule of faith and practice. Everything I believe, everything that keeps me clean, every holy thought, every godly act, I get from my abiding relationship with He who's the living word out of the written word. And brother, if I lose the book as the written word, I've lost it all. But I want you to know for three and a half years they looked the lamb over and couldn't find anything wrong with him except he was what he said he was and they killed him for what he said he was. He was the proven lamb. Then he was the personal lamb. He calls it in verse 5, he says, your lamb. In verse 4, the lamb. And then again he says in the same verse, a lamb. A lamb, the lamb, your lamb. He's a lamb to me personally. He's the lamb for the whole world. And he's your lamb if you'll come to him tonight. Amen? I've got news for you folks. You can know him personally if you'll just come to him and decide upon the lamb. Secondly, not only do we see a deciding upon the lamb, but we see a dependence upon the lamb. And here's what he said. On the 14th day of the month I want you to take that lamb and kill it. And in two things we find in this chapter and that is this. We find the shedding of blood and we find the sprinkling of blood. Well you see the shedding of blood implies that the very life is going out of that lamb. Now remember this. Before you can have life you've got to have death because life is in the blood. And blood can't be shed until there's death. But just as sure as there's death there'll be life because blood shed means life is in the blood. Right? Hey, how in the world can we deny that we're saved by the blood of Jesus if we deny the very perfect lamb of God? If he had poisoned blood then we have no Redeemer. We're of all men most miserable. But you see when Jesus went to the cross and died and gave his blood as a price for the sin of the world he's giving his life. You say, well Brother Bill what makes the blood so important? Because God said without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins. You know anymore I got to where I found myself trying to find things to preach that would get saints blessed. But Brother Bill if you can't get blessed over the blood of the lamb your blesser has lost its blessing. And your bell has lost its clapper and your wood is just too wet to catch fire. Amen? Hallelujah. Amen. The blood was shed. Look at verse 6. I want you to take it to the 14th day of the month and kill it in the evening. Kill it in the evening. What's going on here? God is fixing to bring them out of Egyptian bondage. They're going to be delivered by the Passover because the angel is going to come to the land and every home that's not under the blood the firstborn shall die in that house. And God said when I see the blood I will pass over you. I think one more time we ought to get to singing songs like what can wash away my sins. Nothing but the blood of Jesus. I think we ought to get to singing them one more time to where we can't hardly stand it. And I think the further we go into ungodliness the more the true body of Christ is going to come back to the old time old fashioned principles of just enjoying what God's doing has done and going to do. And even these old songs are going to thrill our hearts once again when we sing them like down at the cross where my Savior died. Down where from cleansing from sin I cried there to my heart was the blood applied glory to his name. Amen? You see, God is setting a type because the Lamb, the Lord Jesus is a perfect fulfillment of this Old Testament type. And what happens here was Christ typified as the Passover who would become the one who would shed his blood which means hell can't touch me. Death is no longer having a hold on me. I'm more than a conqueror. Why? I have the life of Christ through his shed blood. The life that I have is not my own. The life that I live is not my own. And when the devil comes looking for me he can't find me. I'm hid with Christ in God. In fact, the devil wonders where I went. He does not know that I'm in Christ. You say, how can he get you? He'll have to get in Christ. If he gets in Christ, he'll be a saved devil. Folks, hey, there ain't nothing irreverent about that. I'm in Christ. Hey, do you know since that I'm in Christ that I can't be loved any more than I'm loved? Because I'm loved with a love that is so pure that it's God's love and I don't have to run around looking for love. I've got the greatest love that a man's ever known because when I got in Christ I got the perfect love of God and the Bible said perfect love casts out all fear. Well, Brother Bill, why is it we don't have to be afraid? We have perfect love. Everybody running around hollering and saying, well, I need some love. You get to waking up to who you are in Christ. Jesus Christ dying for you. A holy God walked out of heaven and made a plan for you to be saved and has loved you here in his love. Not that we love God, but he loved us and gave himself to be a propitiation for our sins. Amen? Oh, whenever Brother Tika was talking a while ago about the love of God, oh, the older I get, the more I'm walking into a love affair with a holy God. I can't listen to mere mention of his name, the mere mention of Calvary, the mere mention of resurrection, the mere mention of second coming, the mere mention of the precious blood makes my heart begin to turn somersaults to thank God, love me. And you know how much he loved me? He put his son on the cross and treated him like a sinner. There's little stuff we're calling love today. Have you ever seen anything like it, people falling in and falling out of love? It's just like flipping a coin. I'm in love today, I'm out of love tomorrow. Falling in, falling out. You can't fall out of love because you never did fall in. You don't fall into love. You choose to love. When I met Sue, I found out I didn't fall in love. You know why? Because the emotions run out after about three years. And then she did things I wanted to hit her for. Amen? Y'all sit there and act spiritual. What, y'all? Y'all start, not me. Oh, sick. Hey, hey. Mom and I have been married 37 years. Hey, getting married was no problem. It's hanging in there. I thought a lot of times about trying another one, but the fellow living with that one is having a bigger struggle than I'm having, so I decided to hang in there. I really hadn't thought that. I better straighten that out. Everybody here thinks I'm after their wives. Amen? Well, you know what I've decided? I've decided I've got the one God wants me to have, and if I'll stay right with God, He'll draw out of me a love beyond my capacity that is so godly and so scriptural that I can choose to love her outside of my emotions. And when I love her out of my emotions, I'm walking into a God line. Hey, do you know why Jesus saved you? It's to see if He could get you out of your natural self and get you into a supernatural natural, being supernaturally natural and naturally supernatural, teaching you how to love when you didn't want to, give when you didn't want to, witness when you didn't want to, pray when you didn't want to, read your Bible when you didn't want to. Ladies and gentlemen, I'm sick of folks that's waiting on the want to. Amen? Let me tell you something. I'm learning more and more every day. The more time I spend in the Word at the choice against my feelings when I don't want to get in the Word, it doesn't take but a moment for the Lord Jesus to start overcoming me with His presence to where the time in His Word becomes so joyous I wouldn't miss it for a while. And you know how I did it? I didn't do it because I felt like it. I did it because my Lord would like to have a little fellowship with me. And if I get in the Word, He'll sit down at the table with me and fellowship with me and me with Him. And boy, what a fellowship, what a joy divine, leading on the everlasting life. Amen? Amen? I often say those things about my wife and I because it helps others who are in the struggle to realize that changing wives or changing husbands will not improve the situation because God's going to fix that one where you'll still have to love beyond your capacity because God didn't... You say, Brother Bill, why are you talking about that? You are so loved in Jesus Christ. You can't be loved any more than you're loved. God so loved you, He gave His Son. You've been loved with the highest love that the universe has ever known. A holy God loves you. Amen. Amen? And when you get saved, then you find out He loves you more and more. Why? I can't handle but a little bit and then when I grow a little bit more, when I grow a little bit more, and one day you just say, Oh, my God, I can't believe I'm so loved. And you're just running around wanting everybody to get loved in Jesus. Amen? We got people running... Lord, don't let me get on that tonight. Help my soul. I do that every time I get... I guess because I'm just sick of preachers spending all their time trying to help people who will not get submitted to the Word of God and you can counsel them till you drop dead and they'll never live for God till they get in the book, live out the book, love the book, walk with God, and your problems will turn into joy when the Word of God becomes your strength. Amen? We're dumb for sitting down with people and telling them how to do something if they're not going to get in the book for themselves and live out the Word of God. There's no hope. Amen? They took that blood that was shared and they sprinkled it on the doorpost with a hyssop bush, a very small, insignificant bush that doesn't look like much, but when it is dipped in the blood and put on the door, that's a faith principle. They were literally, by faith, saying, I believe that the applied blood will keep out the death angel and it'll bring the glory of God upon our people. Then they put it in a prominent place. They put the blood up on the top of the doorpost and on each side and I want you to know, ladies and gentlemen, undoubtedly, undoubtedly, they put it to where not only they could see it as they walked in behind the blood to rest in peace, but they put it where everybody else could see it. On the doorpost. We want you to know, this house rests in the joy of the blood of the Lamb. And they put it where the whole world, the people passing by, could see the blood applied to the door and applied to the doorpost. No, do we see deciding upon the Lamb and depending upon the Lamb, but we see them dining upon the Lamb. He said, here's what I want you to do. After you have stricken the blood on the two side posts, on the upper doorpost of the houses, verse 8, And they shall eat the flesh in that night, roast with fire, and unleavened bread, and with bitter herbs shall they eat it. Eat it, not of it raw, not boiled at all with water, but roast with fire, its head, with its legs, and with the inward parts. And ye shall not let nothing of it remain until the morning. And he goes on to say, if you're going to eat it, you better eat it with your shoes on, your staff in your hand, because not only are you going to be saved by the blood and delivered from the Egyptians, you're fixing the head for a journey that you'll never get over, because God saves you unto a definite lifestyle of godliness and holiness for his glory. And here's what he said by four things, and I'll be through. Number one, he said you're going to have to eat it after it's been roasted with fire. Roasted with fire. You see, what they did, they built a fire, took the lamb, and without anything between the fire and the lamb, they exposed the lamb to the fire. What does that say to me? That when Jesus Christ hung on the cross, there was nothing between he and the judgment of God. There was nothing to hold back part of it. Whenever God saw his son dying on the cross, he exposed him to all the fire of God's judgment. Don't put anything between the fire and the lamb. Why? This is a picture of the judgment of God upon the lamb. Now listen to me. Why that? You see, ladies and gentlemen, this little ooey-gooey, sweetie-sweetie, nicey-nicey group of preachers today that's positive preachers can't preach stuff like this because they don't really know about the love of God. You know what the love of God is? This is it. It's the judgment of God exhausted on somebody in my place so that I can be free. He's forsaken, so I won't have to be. He's judged, so I won't have to be judged. Amen? Amen! This lamb is exposed to the very open fire, and God says you don't eat it until the fire has roasted it. You see, you can't enter into covenant relationship with a holy God unless you enter in under the judging hand of a holy God. Listen to me. Listen to me. Sin has to be paid for. Sin has to be paid for. Amen? Are you hearing me? Sin has got to be paid for. Either I've got to pay for it in hell forever, or God's got to find somebody that can take his judgment for my sins on himself and so bear it, watch this, that God exhausts his judgment on my substitute. And the fire means Jesus was exposed to the very wrath and judgment of God, and when Jesus was hanging on that cross and said, You know what that means? I have borne every ounce of hell and separation and forsakeness. I have been treated like an offender. I have satisfied God's judgment. And now, since I've done it, there's no need for me to hang here any longer. You see, ladies and gentlemen, the only reason why Jesus only hung on the cross six hours is because that's all it took. But he could have hung there 6,000 years if that's how much it took. But why hang any longer than a holy God is pleased with? Amen? And whenever that Jesus knew that he had borne the judgment, you say, well, when did Jesus know about the judgment? On the ninth hour, when in the midst of judicial darkness, when all the darkness of hell, this wasn't the darkness of a natural night, this is the darkness of God's judgment, fell upon Jesus at the cross. And Jesus cries out in the darkness. It's silent. You can't see your hand in front of your face. This is judicial darkness. This is what sinners are facing hell. This is the darkness of God's judgment. And it fell upon Jesus at the cross. And he cried out, My God, my God, where hast thou forsaken me? The only time in the record of the word of God that Jesus did not call him Father. He called him God. Why? Because God has pulled the shades of eternity. He has cut off his son. There's no fellowship now. He's treating him like a sinner, treating him like an offender. What's Jesus going through? God's roasting him in the fire of God's judgment. Would God get back to preaching the truth? What I'm saying tonight doesn't stir the hearts of the same man. You need to get back to Calvary. You're too far from the glory of God. I'm tired of going to seminars and hearing about demons and strongholds. You've got a little child living in you. Grow old. Junk. I think it's about time we fall in love with the Lord Jesus. And so love him for being the roasted lamb. You know why you're saved? Because when you ran to the mercy seat and God accepted you in Jesus, you were crucified with Christ and as far as God's concerned, you died when Jesus died, which means if you died when Jesus died, God's exhausted his judgment on you too. Co-crucified! Co-crucified! That means everything that happened to Jesus happened to me in the mind of God. And you know why I can't be judged? It's exhausted. I'm in Christ. God's got no more judgment for me. Why? He put it all on his son, and I'm in his son. Oh, I don't know why I preach these things. I'll just let you go home. What is that, 937? Okay, I've got 40 more minutes. Eat it roasted with fire, but don't eat it boiled. Why? Because you're going to have to eat a lamb that's been judged by the fire. Then eat it with unleavened bread. That means purity, holiness. Don't let sin be in your life. Keep your life holy! Eat it unleavened! And don't run to the altar with sin in your life and expect God to condone your sin, even though that he bore your judgment at the cross, he expects out of us holiness when we come to his table. Then he said eat it with bitter herbs. What in the world has that got to do with it? I believe bitter herbs means repentance and brokenness. Do you know the only time I quit loving the cross and loving Jesus? It's whenever I get to thinking that I'm something or somebody and God couldn't do very good if I were to get off the scene. I mean, we're so preached that we make... Listen, I've watched preachers stand in the pulpit and really brag on people so that they slew them in their walk with God. I was with a pastor, and he so bragged on his people that he made me sick. If they're all that good, I got no business being there. I get off airplanes, and the preacher says, boy, we're doing great. Our church is better than it's ever been. We don't have any problems. I mean, it's just wonderful. And I said, well, brother, give me my expense check. I'll go on back home. You don't need me if your people are all that holy. They're sprouting wings. There's no need for me coming. Amen? You say, well, how do you walk with God, Brother Bill? You see, when I got saved and really repented, it wasn't worldly sorrow. It was godly sorrow. You know what kind of godly sorrow it was? I deserve the cross. I deserve hell. I deserve judgment. I deserve to be separated. I deserve all that was put on Jesus, but somebody bore it for me. And because of what I'd done to God, I came in godly sorrow. What's godly sorrow? I've offended God. I've wronged God. I ought to go to hell. But oh, God, could you give me mercy? And see, a man that don't repent like that can never walk with God correctly, because repentance in salvation is the beginning of a continual repentance the rest of your life, because every time that you miss God in your walk, you have to repent again, repent again, repent again. Our problem is, we have forgotten how to repent. Repentance and brokenness. What is brokenness? It's refusing your rights, refusing to defend yourself, and coming before the cross, and allowing Jesus Christ to rule your life to where all that matters is Him living through you. You know what brokenness is? It's seeing Bill Stafford when he used to lose his temper, not losing it, and standing there praising God that he's got victory in Jesus. And in that moment of appropriation, Christ becomes his living reality, because the only reason why he didn't lose his temper, he had a living Christ living through him who empowered him to live beyond his capacity. Do you know when I see Jesus in people? It's when they apologize, when they're wrong. Do you know when I see Jesus in people? It's when they give, when I know they're so tight they squeak when they walk. But they're giving because they obey Jesus and love God. That's brokenness. Brokenness is an attitude. Eat it with bitter herbs. Amen? I've told my wife I'm sorry so many times. She thinks it's my middle name. I've had to repent. Listen. Last, and I close. They are to travel in the strength of the Lamb and to feast on him the rest of their journey because he is sufficient. Amen? There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel's vein and sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains. Amen? But I like this one. The dying thief rejoice to see that fountain in his day and there may I though vile as he wash all my sins away. Amen? Ladies and gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen, Christ has died. Christ has risen and we live on him as we journey through the world and he is sufficient. Praise God for the blood of Jesus. Amen?
Christ Our Passover
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Bill Stafford (January 15, 1933 – September 15, 2019) was an American preacher and evangelist whose dynamic ministry within the Southern Baptist Convention spanned over six decades, marked by a passion for revival and global outreach. Born in Whitwell, Tennessee, to a Christian family, he was saved at age 12 in a Baptist church but rebelled as a teenager, dreaming of becoming a comedian inspired by Red Skelton. Surrendering to preach at 19 after growing weary of running from God, he began his ministry, which included singing with his mother in church as a youth—an early sign of his engaging style. He served as pastor of Harmony Grove Baptist Church in Blairsville, Georgia, among other roles, before embracing full-time evangelism. Stafford’s preaching career took him to thousands worldwide, preaching up to 60 meetings annually in places like South Africa, Ireland, Australia, and Europe as President of the International Congress on Revival, a role he assumed in 1990 after Manley Beasley’s death. Known as “Wild Bill” for his animated delivery—making audiences laugh one minute and cry the next—he taught sacrificial giving and Christ’s sufficiency, notably at North Metro Baptist Church in Lawrenceville, Georgia. Inducted into the Southern Baptist Evangelists Hall of Faith in 2008, he married Sue, with whom he shared a daughter, Debbie, and two grandchildren. He died in Chattanooga, Tennessee, at 86, his boots-on legacy preserved through friendships with pastors like Frank Cox and his unwavering gospel focus despite late-life dementia.