In this sermon, the preacher emphasizes the transformative power of the word of God. He compares the experience of the children of Israel, who were enslaved in Egypt for 400 years, to the bondage and weakness that people may feel in their own lives. The preacher highlights the preciousness of redemption through the blood of Christ, which has the potential to revolutionize any life, marriage, or family. He encourages believers to share this power and love with their neighbors, emphasizing the importance of forgiveness and the magnitude of the cross.

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