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[0:00] together now and if you turn back to Exodus and chapter 12, we've had a little break from Exodus these past weeks and but we've been going through and we've come to the very last of those plagues that God brought upon the Egyptians to show his power and show the reality that he was the God who loved his people and had a concern for his people and would go to any lengths to deliver and rescue his people and before we get to that we're going to read chapter 12, not the whole of chapter 12 but up to verse 30 where the Lord lays out through Moses and Aaron instructions about preparing for this wonderful event when they would be liberated, set free, delivered and on their journey to the promised land. So Exodus chapter 12 and beginning at verse 1. The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in Egypt, this month is to be for you the first month, the first month of your year. Tell the whole community of Israel that on the 10th day of this month each man is to take a lamb for his family, one for each household. If any household is too small for a whole lamb, they must share one with their nearest neighbor, having taken into account the number of people there are. You are to determine the amount of lamb needed in accordance with what each person will eat. The animals you choose must be year-old males without defect and you may take them from sheep or the goats. Take care of them until the 14th day of the month when all the people of the community of Israel must slaughter them at twilight. Then they are to take some of the blood and put it on the sides and tops of the door frames of the houses where they eat the lambs. That same night they are to eat the meat roasted over the fire along with bitter herbs and bread made without yeast. Do not eat the meat raw or cooked in water but roasted over the fire, head, legs and inner parts. Do not leave any of it till morning. If some of it is left till morning, you must burn it. This is how you are to eat it. With your cloak tucked into your belt, your sandals on your feet, your staff in your hand. Eat it in haste. It is the Lord's Passover. On that same night

[2:27] I will pass through Egypt and strike down every firstborn, both men and animals, and I will bring judgment on all the gods of Egypt. I am the Lord. The blood will be a sign for you on the houses where you are. When I see the blood, I will pass over you. No destructive plague will touch you when I strike Egypt. This is a day you are to commemorate for the generations to come. You shall celebrate it as a festival to the Lord, a lasting ordinance. For seven days you are to eat bread made without yeast.

[2:59] On the first day remove the yeast from your houses. For whoever eats anything with yeast in it from the first day until the seventh must be cut off from Israel. On the first day hold a sacred assembly and another one on the seventh day. Do not work at all on these days except prepare food for everyone to eat.

[3:17] That is all you are to do. Celebrate the feast of unleavened bread because it was on this very day that I brought your divisions out of Egypt. Celebrate this day as a lasting ordinance for the generations to come.

[3:30] In the first month you are to eat bread made without yeast from the evening of the 14th day until the evening of the 21st day. For seven days no yeast is to be found in your houses. Whoever eats anything with yeast in it must be cut off from the community of Israel, whether he is an alien or native born.

[3:48] Eat nothing made with yeast. Wherever you live you must eat unleavened bread. Then Moses summoned all the elders of Israel and said to them, go at once and select the animals for your families and slaughter the Passover lamb. Take a bunch of hyssop, dip it into the blood in the basin and put some of the blood on the top and on both sides of the doorframe. Not one of you shall go out of the door of his house until morning. When the Lord goes through the land to strike down the Egyptians, he will see the blood on the top and sides of the doorframe and will pass over that doorway. Will not permit the destroyer to enter your houses and strike you down. Obey these instructions as a lasting ordinance for you and your descendants. When you enter the land that the Lord will give you as he promised, observe this ceremony. And when your children ask you, what does this ceremony mean to you? Then tell them it is the Passover sacrifice to the Lord who passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt and spared our homes when he struck down the Egyptians. Then the people bowed down and worshipped. The Israelites did just what the Lord commanded Moses and Aaron. At midnight the Lord struck down all the firstborn in

[5:03] Egypt. From the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on the throne, the firstborn of the prisoner who was in the dungeon, firstborn of all the livestock as well. Pharaoh and all his officials and all the Egyptians got up during the night. There was loud wailing in Egypt. There was not a house without someone dead.

[5:25] Well we are back in Exodus 12 and if you have a Bible at hand it would be helpful for you to turn there because we're going to be referring to this passage throughout this sermon and then also other parts of New Testament too. But having chapter 12 Exodus will be good.

[5:41] I wonder if you can remember what is the most memorable meal that you've ever eaten. Perhaps it was when you went to a restaurant on your first date with your future husband or wife. Perhaps it was a special family celebration, an anniversary or a birthday or something like that. Maybe it wasn't a special occasion at all but the food that you ate was so good, it was so lovely, it sort of makes your mouth water even thinking about it now. Or perhaps you remember it for quite the opposite reason.

[6:16] The food was so bad it still sticks in your memory as it once stuck in your throat. Eating and special occasions go together. The eating and our thinking and our thoughts are joined together. That's why when we celebrate anything we usually do it with food.

[6:32] We eat together with others who are sharing this important event with us, whether it be our family, our friends, our church or whoever. And one of the things I think we can be fairly certain about is that the Hebrew slaves who ate that first Passover meal would never forget it ever. It's unlike any other meal they'd eaten before, not because of the ingredients which are roast lamb and herb salad and unleavened bread but because of the special events that it marked.

[7:04] Intertwined with this meal was that final plague that God brought against the Egyptian oppressors of God's people. A devastating plague which we read just in very short detail at the end of those verses when every firstborn son was slain. It would be a memorable meal not only because of that plague but a memorable meal but a memorable meal because it was going to be their last meal in Egypt.

[7:30] Every meal they'd ever eaten in their lives had been in Egypt before that time and this was the last one. What happened that night would ultimately catapult the Hebrews out of Egypt, out of slavery, send them on their way on that long-awaited and promised journey to the promised lands.

[7:48] But primarily this meal is significant not just for God's people in the Old Testament but for God's people throughout time and history because it symbolizes the greatest event that ever took place in the history of the world, something that was even more momentous than the exodus of God's people out of Egypt. For this Passover, look forward to the death of the Lord Jesus Christ.

[8:17] Look forward to the one who was God's true and only Passover lamb. 1 Corinthians and chapter 5, that's how Paul describes Jesus.

[8:29] Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. It's looking forward to that day, looking forward to what God had promised throughout the ages that he would do in the salvation of men and women.

[8:45] And so many details of this Passover meal point to Jesus and make it plain and clear that's exactly what we're meant to see here and understand here. Even though the believers and the Hebrews didn't see it yet, they saw it in part and looked forward with that faith.

[9:03] This Passover meal points to the suffering of Jesus, points to his death for sinful men and women, points to him suffering and bearing that plague of death for us and securing for both the Old Testament people of God and the New Testament people of God, liberty, life, the enjoyment of marvelous blessings.

[9:26] And that's the chief reason this meal is here. When we look in the Old Testament, we see over and over again that there are two things for us to see.

[9:36] There are the present reality of what's happening and the future to which it's pointing to. The Exodus is the picture of being set free, of becoming a Christian, being free from slavery to sin and death and brought into the liberty and the fullness of life which is in Christ.

[9:54] And here in this Passover lamb, we see so much of Jesus, the one who sets people free. Over and over again in the New Testament, you'll find that Jesus is spoken of as the lamb.

[10:06] John 1.29, John the Baptist, as he sees Jesus, Look, behold, the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Peter, as he writes his first letter to the Christians, reminds them that they were redeemed, rescued, saved with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect.

[10:26] And even in heaven as the saints who've gone before us and the angels worship and bow down before the Lord Jesus Christ and God the Father, they sing the song, Worthy is the lamb who was slain to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honour and glory.

[10:45] So this lamb, this Passover lamb, is meant for us to see that Jesus Christ is our Passover lamb. And this lamb is described carefully to point to Jesus.

[10:59] First of all, to point to Jesus in his perfection. Look at verse 5. The animals you choose, we're told that they were lambs, the animals you choose must be a year old males without defects.

[11:13] Every lamb had to be one year old without defect. They were to take them into their homes on the 10th day, slaughter them on the 14th day of that month. You just couldn't pick any old sheep you wanted to from the herd.

[11:25] You couldn't pick one of those that was on its last legs and about to keel over. You couldn't pick a sickly animal or a maimed animal. Why not? People have, up until recently, always eaten mutton.

[11:38] It's sort of gone out of fashion now. We eat lamb. But up until recently, people would eat animals, unless the animal had died of some horrible disease, which you wouldn't want to eat it in case it passed on to you. But you would eat an animal, whether it was blind in one eye, or deaf in one ear, or had a limp, or whatever.

[11:55] No, God's precise commandments are to point to the fact that this is a picture of Jesus Christ, the sinless lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.

[12:05] When Jesus died, he was in his prime, wasn't he? Around about 33 years old, we're told in the New Testament. He wasn't really old, having lived all his life.

[12:17] He was a young man. Someone we might say had all his life before him to live. He wasn't a child. He was somebody who was capable. Somebody who was able.

[12:29] Remember Alexander the Great was 33 years old when he had conquered a huge empire, spreading from Greece all the way to India. But it isn't just the age of the lamb, being a year old, that's important.

[12:42] It's this without defect. Especially important was it which mustn't be disfigured. It mustn't be maimed. It mustn't be sickly in any way. Why?

[12:52] Because, again, Jesus, as the Passover lamb of God, was perfect in every way. 1 Peter 1.19, as I've mentioned already, Peter speaks of Jesus, a lamb without blemish or defect.

[13:05] He's not talking about his physical health. He's not talking about Jesus being a fine, robust health without eye problems or hearing problems. No doubt Jesus did have a very healthy and strong physique.

[13:19] He was well in every way, as far as we know. There's nothing to suggest otherwise. But there's not talking about that. The outward physical defects of the lamb point to about the fact that Jesus was without sin, without moral defect, without spiritual defect.

[13:36] He was perfect. The only perfect human being who's ever lived. Writing to the Hebrews, the writer speaks of Jesus, he was tempted in every way, just as we are.

[13:48] That's one of the great comforting things we have as Christians, is that our Lord Jesus Christ truly lived a human life, like ours, was tempted and tested, tried, struggled. But, says the author, tempted in every way, just as we are, yet was without sin.

[14:04] Every single one of us is a sinner. Every single one of us has sinned. There's none of us here who would deny that. Jesus not only denied it, but he was in reality truly sinless.

[14:18] He was truly human in every way. But, he never sinned, not once, not in thought, not in action, not in word. Does it really matter? Does it matter that Jesus was without sin?

[14:30] Does it matter that he was perfect? Yes, it matters. Because in dying for us, he was our substitute. He was our atoning sacrifice, which means, he took God's wrath upon himself for us.

[14:43] He died for sin, but not his own sin, for our sin. We will all die physically, unless the Lord Jesus Christ comes back first. That has to happen. It's because sin is part of our nature, and part of our bodies, part of who we are.

[14:58] Sin is what brings death. When Jesus died on the cross, he didn't die because he had sin of his own. He died for your sin and mine. That's why Peter writes, God made him, Jesus, who had no sin to be sin for us.

[15:13] This incredible event takes place at the cross, where your sin and mine, the sin of everyone who will believe and trust in Jesus, was taken and placed, the guilt, the shame, the punishment we deserve, placed upon Christ, upon the cross.

[15:29] And there that sin was punished, once and for all and forever. If Jesus had died for his own sins, he couldn't have died for our sins. Absolutely unnecessary that he was perfect and sinless, a spotless sacrifice.

[15:42] sacrifice. The only sacrifice for sin. You see these lambs that were being offered, and the lambs, and the bulls, and the goats, and all the other things that were offered all through the Old Testament.

[15:56] All of them could never bring forgiveness for sin. They were all of them just waiting for, and preparing for that one sacrifice for sin, that one substitute, which is Jesus.

[16:08] Again, in Hebrews, here the writers compares Jesus' sacrifice to that of those animals. How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself, unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death?

[16:26] All of us have a past. All of us have those shameful things, those skeletons in our cupboards. All of us carry with us some guilt of the way we've acted and behaved and lived.

[16:37] All of us have regrets. Let me say this to you, dear friends, there is only one way for us to be free from, and cleansed from, and delivered from those things. It's not the forgiveness that Jesus brought at the cross.

[16:49] We can try to solve our conscience by telling us, well, it was a long time ago, or it wasn't quite so bad as what other people do, but none of those things really will take away that stinging guilt and shame we feel.

[17:03] Only the blood of Christ can cleanse the conscience. Only what he did for us on the cross and accepting that he has taken it and that we're forgiven. These are the only things that will actually give us peace of heart and mind, and more importantly than that, peace with God.

[17:20] Jesus is the blemishless, the unspotted, the unstained, the perfect, without defect, lamb, slain for us.

[17:33] And we see, ultimately, I believe, that in this meal as well, something of the reality of what he suffered there. because it's not just talking about the lamb, and we'll come to that again in a minute, but also we're told about the things that were to be eaten with the lamb.

[17:49] Notice that in verse 8, the same night they had to eat the meat roasted over the fire, along with bitter herbs. Bitter herbs. Not nice, crisp lettuce, and they said, bitter herbs.

[18:02] Why? Why is there bitterness involved in the sacrifice? Well, of course, we're talking about the fact that our Lord Jesus Christ had bitter pain and experience.

[18:14] Let's not think, because he was the Son of God, that somehow he was alleviated from the physical pains, or the real suffering of his soul at the cross. He endured them to the fullest extent.

[18:27] These bitter herbs, I believe, speak of Christ's tasting of the bitterness and the sorrow and the grief that are beyond the compare. Tasting of death for us.

[18:39] Again, Hebrews says this, he suffered death so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone. There was no being let off the hook for Jesus. There was no sort of, well, he's the Son of God, so though he died there, it looked like he died, he wasn't really dying, he wasn't really suffering, because, of course, it was just, he wasn't, no, it's full and complete.

[19:00] It was a bitter experience. Why do you think that Gethsemane, on his knees before God in prayer, he cries out? Why do you think he weeps and sweats drops of blood?

[19:13] Why do you think that on the cross, when he fully feels and experiences the awesome and awful wrath of God against our sin, he cries, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

[19:25] If it wasn't real, if it wasn't deep, if it wasn't painful, if it wasn't bitter, if it wasn't costly. And in one sense, to add to that, surely we see God giving instructions about the meat itself.

[19:43] Verse 8, they are to eat the meat roasted over the fire. Verse 9, Do not eat meat raw or cooked in water, but roast it over the fire, head, legs, and inner parts.

[19:55] What's the difference? What difference does it make how you cook your lamb? Whether you roast it or boil it, or, I don't know what else you could do with it. There's a meaning, surely, in the roasting, isn't there?

[20:09] There's meaning in it. Why is it roasted? Surely, it's meant to mean something. God's wrath is presented as fire. Psalm 21, in his wrath, the Lord will swallow them up. His fire will consume them.

[20:21] When those people in the wilderness, if we ever get there, rebelled against God, what did God do? He sent fire out from himself. It was a sign and a picture of his anger, his wrath.

[20:34] And again, this is the thing, the lamb was roasted in the fire. Christ himself, again, was roasted in the fire of the wrath of God. On the cross, this is the awful thing.

[20:51] Not only did he know the bitterness and the awfulness of our sin, but he knew what it was to be counted by God as a sinner for us. Can we even begin to grasp how God, the Father, who had loved his Son from eternity, that he should treat him in this way?

[21:13] And you would say, that's an awful thing. How could God do such an awful thing? Because it was the only way for you and I to be forgiven and made right with God. If there was any other way that we could be saved from our sins, if we could be saved from our sins by being good people or religious people or by giving ourselves over to be a monk or a nun or any of those things, if we could be saved in any other way apart from Christ bearing the sin and the wrath of God upon himself, do you not think God would have thought of it?

[21:43] Do you not think God would have spared his Son at any length to prevent him going through that? He was roasted in the fire.

[21:59] And notice again, it tells us head, legs and inner parts. I don't know if you, when you cook a lamb, even if you're cooking a whole lamb, you'd probably take the head off and you'd take the insides out.

[22:12] No, it's complete, isn't it? The whole lamb. Nothing was held back in Christ's sacrifice and even if there was anything left over, we're told to the morning, you couldn't eat all the lamb, you had to burn it in the fire.

[22:24] It had to be a complete and finished and absolute sacrifice. And the wonderful thing is this, dear friends, that when the Lord Jesus Christ went to the cross for us, he didn't hold anything back but he gave the full and the complete fullness of himself as it were unto God and gave a sacrifice that shall never be repeated and never needs be repeated and cannot be added to.

[22:51] Here's, again, Hebrews so helpfully explaining much of what we understand in the Old Testament. Christ was sacrificed once, take away the sins of many people. He will appear a second time not to bear sin but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.

[23:07] There is no further sacrifice for sin. There's nothing that you and I have to do to add to what Christ has done for us. There's nothing that we can do by way of good works, nothing we can do by religious ceremonies.

[23:21] There is no further sacrifice, there is no further offering that God wants from you or from I. He simply wants us to receive and to take part, as we'll see in a moment, of the sacrifice of Jesus for ourselves.

[23:33] us. In this meal we see the pain of Christ. We see the fullness and completeness of his death for us.

[23:46] But of course we see the results as well. We see the repercussions, the consequences of Christ's death. The lamb that was slain, that lamb at the Passover brought protection. Protection.

[23:57] The blood of the lamb protected every family from the plague of death that was coming. verse 13, the blood will be assigned for you on the houses where you are. I will see the blood.

[24:08] I will pass over you. No destructive plague will touch you when I strike Egypt. It wasn't necessarily the eating of the lamb that gave them protection but it was the sprinkling of the blood.

[24:21] They were told later on to take a hyssop branch and sprinkle the lintel and the posts of the door. It was applying the blood that brought them safety.

[24:34] Now we may look at that in our 21st century icing. What a macabre thing to do. And all those TV programs we have on the telly about 30 minute makeover and so on.

[24:44] Not seeing anybody yet use blood as a medium for sort of painting their walls or their houses or anything like that. It seems almost yes, archaic, out of touch.

[24:55] but it was only the blood that saved. It was only the blood that prevented that destruction, that plague, that death entering the home.

[25:10] We recognize that in Christ's death upon the cross by his blood being shed for us we have protection from the judgment our sins deserve. We are protected from God's wrath against our sin and we do deserve it, every one of us.

[25:28] We all acknowledge and recognize that we have sinned and broken God's commandments. We all recognize and see that we are not people that we should be. We have in our thoughts, our words, our lives constantly disobeyed God and gone our own way and pleased ourselves.

[25:42] Well the Bible makes it very clear dear friends that there is only one consequence for sin and that is death. death, both physical death which we all are experiencing in our bodies, spiritual death which is alienation and condemnation from God.

[25:58] But here is the wonderful thing, here is the good news, Jesus Christ came to be slain as our Passover lamb that his blood should protect us from what our sins deserve that we should be spared.

[26:11] When the Apostle Peter in that same letter in which he speaks about Jesus as the precious lamb of God without spot he reminds the Christians at the beginning, he says to them, you are God's elect who have been chosen by the foreknowledge of God through the sanctifying work of the Spirit for obedience in Jesus Christ and sprinkling by his blood.

[26:36] We are made right with God. We are rescued from that day of judgment and punishment that must come upon all people and it's all because Jesus, our Passover lamb, was slain.

[26:52] We don't speak much of the blood. Used to be those great songs, didn't they? Are you washed in the blood of the lamb? And it all seemed a bit odd and weird. In one sense, it is odd and weird.

[27:04] But for the Christian, for us, dear friends, it's the only hope. For those in that day of Passover, they might have thought, well, that's a bit weird. I'm not going to do that. I'll eat the lamb. Fine, I'll eat the bitter herbs.

[27:14] Yuck, but yes, I'll eat them. I'll do all those things, but I'm not going to go and sprinkle blood about. That's weird. It was the only thing that saved them. And of course, we see here in this Passover lamb not only that Jesus was the perfect lamb of God and we see the pain he suffered and we see the wonderful protection he has provided, but we see as well that in him is the promise fulfilled.

[27:41] See, the people who shared in that Passover lamb would soon be free. There's a wonderful promise attached. Verse 11, this is how you are to eat the lamb with your cloak tucked into your belt, your sandals on your feet and your staff in your hand, eating in haste.

[27:57] It's the Lord's Passover. Why? Because we're told that on that same night they were going to leave that place of slavery and punishment and oppression forever.

[28:10] a wonderful promise. That last meal in captivity would be that lamb and just a little while later they would be tasting freedom. What a wonderful promise.

[28:25] And when we look to the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ, we look to what he's done for us in dying in our place and bearing our sin, we have the promise, the promise of newness of life. We have the promise of liberty from slavery.

[28:37] We have the promise of life everlasting. Here's Paul as he writes, speaking of Christ whose destroyed death has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.

[28:49] When Jesus went and took on our sin, he took on death and he conquered death for us because he tasted of death, he endured death. So that for the Christian, there is no fear of physical death because it is that entering into life everlasting.

[29:03] And there is no fear of ever being cast away into that second death, eternal punishment and separation from God because Christ has paid for that too. There's that promise of life in a new home, a new country, a promise of heaven, the hope that every one of God's people throughout the ages have always believed and even those of Abraham's day and those of Moses' day looked forward.

[29:31] Hebrews 11 tells us they were looking for a better country, a heavenly country. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God for he's prepared a city for them.

[29:42] They had the same hope that we have, that we are heading home. This world is not our home, it's just a place we're camping in for the time being, in these tents of our bodies. Soon we're going to be wrapping up the tents and we're going to be going to that place of eternal security and stability where the winds won't buffet us and the rain won't dampen us, where we shall be brought into that place where we shall be with God and we shall be his people.

[30:12] Dear friends, we're not dreamers, we're not those who have our head in the clouds, but we do have our heart in heaven, don't we? We know that this world with all its sadnesses and griefs and sorrows must come to an end, but in one sense that's just the beginning, that's just the start.

[30:31] And we know it's because of Jesus, because of what he's done for us, he's promised that where I am you shall be also. We're headed there. We're headed there because Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed for us.

[30:48] So just as we come to a close, we need to ask ourselves, well how does this apply to me? What does this mean for me today? That Christ is the Passover lamb?

[31:02] Well like these people of old, we've got to do something. It wasn't enough that God gave them the instructions, that God told them what he would do, that he promised them all these things. They had to do something, they had to take hold of the lamb and they had to partake of the lamb.

[31:15] They had to have a share in the lamb, a share in his death. So it is with us. Jesus said some words which drove a lot of people away but he was talking about what it really means to put your faith and trust in him.

[31:33] Surely he was thinking as well of the Passover lamb too for he said to the people in John chapter 6, I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.

[31:47] Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him.

[32:02] Just as the living Father sent me, I live because of the Father. So the one who feeds on me will live because of me. Jesus wasn't talking about taking communion or taking part in Mass or eating at the Lord's Supper as we might call it in any way.

[32:18] He's not talking about those things. He's talking about clearly feeding on him by faith. Acknowledging that he is my Passover lamb, that he has been slain for me and I want a part of that.

[32:33] And I put my trust in him as the sinless sacrifice who suffered for me. But it means something more than that surely. We see it here, particularly in this ongoing, we haven't got a lot of time, an ongoing speaking about the bread without yeast.

[32:50] Not only were they to eat bitter herbs, not only were they to eat the lamb roast in the fire, they eat unleavened bread and God got quite strict, didn't he, and severe about it. He said, for seven days you are to eat bread made without yeast.

[33:02] First day remove the yeast from your houses. Whoever eats anything with yeast in it from the first day to the seventh must be cut off. Why all this fuss? Because throughout the Bible yeast represents sin.

[33:14] And if we want to come to Christ and partake of what he's done for us on the cross, if we want to feed on him and enjoy the blessings of forgiveness of sin, then we've got to do something, we've got to get rid of sin. We've got to turn away from our sins and we've got to remove them from every part of our lives.

[33:32] Just like taking the yeast out of every part of the home, so we have to say, sin will not be my master, sin will not have its place in me. And Paul writes to the Corinthians, he reminds them of this illustration, this parallel between sin and between the yeast.

[33:49] He says, let us keep the feast, not with the old yeast, the yeast of malice and wickedness, but with bread made without yeast, the bread of sincerity and truth. The Bible calls that repentance.

[34:03] It's saying, yes, I am a sinner, but I don't want to live in sin anymore. I don't want it to be part of my life anymore. I don't want it to be in my home anymore. They had to get rid of all the yeast and eat only unleavened bread.

[34:18] See, a lot of people will say, yes, I'd love to have Jesus. I'd love to have him come into my life and be real for me. I'd love to have that sense of forgiveness for my sin. I'd love to have that hope and that certainty of going to heaven.

[34:30] I'd love to be assured that I'm right with God. But you see, I just enjoy my sins. I enjoy pleasing myself. I enjoy following my own way. Can't I just have my cake and eat it?

[34:41] No, you can't. You either have Christ on his terms or you don't have him at all. You either have Christ as the saviour of sinners or you continue to live in your sin.

[34:53] There is only one way to be saved and that is ultimately to repent and believe. Do you really love your sins that much that you're willing to carry them all the way to hell?

[35:04] Are those sins so precious to you, so important to you? Is having your way and pleasing yourself so, so makes you so happy that you would rather enjoy them and wallow in them for just a few short years and miss out on being with Christ and having eternal life forever?

[35:26] And really, do they make you happy? Does pleasing yourself ever make anybody happy? Aren't the number of suicides amongst people that's growing, showing that the more and more we live for self, the more and more unhappy we must be?

[35:41] Dear friends, let me urge you, come to Christ. Take that blood of his that was shed for you and be sprinkled and cleansed with it. Put your faith in Christ as your saviour, as the only one who can rescue you, who longs to rescue you.

[35:57] Unlike those lambs that went to slaughter, they were dumb animals who really had no choice. Let me say this, when Christ, the Passover lamb, went to the cross, he went willingly and gladly, knowing what he would endure and doing it for your sake and mine.

[36:12] Nobody forced him the father didn't have a big stick to prod him or a shotgun at his back. He went willingly for the joy set before him, says the New Testament. He endured the suffering and the shame.

[36:25] And dear friends, as Christians, this morning, if we have taken of the lamb, if we've eaten, if we've enjoyed the blessings of sin forgiven, then let us live every day with our sights set on the promised home.

[36:37] Let's forget what's behind. Let's not long for the cucumber and the leeks and the onions of Egypt. Let's look forward to the promised land, the land flowing with milk and honey.

[36:49] Let's live for what is yet to come. Let's see our home as not being in this world or in Egypt, but that we are pilgrims on the way to that which is perfect and complete.

[37:00] Let's press on, remembering at what great cost we have been saved and rescued, remembering and rejoicing and feasting and celebrating that Jesus Christ, our Passover lamb, has done it all for us.

[37:19] Let me urge you, dear friends, whoever you are, whatever your circumstances, whatever your background, be sure that the blood of Christ is painted, sprinkled over you because there will come a day, there has to come a day when the God comes again in judgment upon this earth and every single one of us must stand before him and if we have not been washed in the blood of Christ, if we've not put our faith in him, if we're not safely hidden in Christ, then there will come destruction and sorrow and like the people of Egypt, there will be loud wailing beyond compare for you and for all who have rejected this wonderful lamb.

[38:11] Let's sing together as we close our time this morning. 312, Lamb of God, you now are seated. We remember Jesus Christ, yes, his death, but his resurrection and ascension that he is still in heaven, the lamb who we must worship and adore.

[38:29] The lamb who is not one of weakness and death but one of life and power. Let's stand and sing 312. 312. Amen. Amen.

[39:37] Amen. Amen.

[40:37] Amen. Amen.

[41:37]  Amen.