Jesus Christ

Alright, getting into the sermon today. As has been my custom since I've been your pastor, as we approach the Passover, I want to give meat and do season. We have, in the last number of weeks, gone through a number of things that help us to prepare for the Passover. You know, Mr. Lee there was talking about getting ready and preparing. We've had a sermon on how to examine ourselves properly. Last week he talked about foot washing in a little bit of a different way than we normally do. Today we want to take a look at the bread portion of the Passover service.

Again, I want to do this in a way that I've never done here. I've been your pastor for, what, 16 years now. I've never covered this segment of the Passover preparation in just this way. Let's begin our journey today by turning over to John 6.

On Passover evening I'll be reading extensively from this chapter. I'll be reading this particular verse as well. But let's take a look. This helps launch the material I would like to cover today. John 6 and verse 58. John 6, 58. In my Bible this is all read lettering, in the words of Christ. This is the bread which came down from heaven. Not as your fathers ate the manna and are dead. He who eats this bread will live forever. So here we have Jesus Christ Himself referring to Himself as a type of manna. He's not the physical manna, He is a spiritual manna.

And manna is a very special bread prepared by God for mankind. So I think there's a number of lessons for us to learn as we take a look into the Old Testament. We take a look then into the New Testament. We compare the Old Testament manna with the New Testament manna who is Jesus Christ. Now by way of introduction in the Old Testament we see that the manna came miraculously from heaven. It was a miracle. And what a miracle it was.

Every day, with the exception of the Sabbath, every day for 40 years. A miracle every day with the exception of the Sabbath for 40 years. God promised to provide bread for His people. He provided that bread. He did it for between 2 and 3 million people out there in the wilderness.

He did it in such a way that not only did He feed them, but He wanted them to realize the miracles that were taking place and the way He was going to provide for them. Now of course we switch to the New Testament and we see that Jesus Christ also was a miracle who came down from heaven. His birth was miraculous, born of a virgin. And all that He means to us was miraculous.

Another thing that we see in the Old Testament, and this is just introductory material. We'll get more specific as the sermon goes along. Another thing we see in the Old Testament is that the manna tested the faith of the Old Testament church. The manna tested their faith. They were told to go out every day for 6 days, actually for 5 days, and get their portion of manna. Then on the 6th day they would get a double portion. On the 7th day they were not to go out.

And that was the test. Were they going to do what God said they do? Why is it so good they take something on a, not a double portion on a Tuesday, but you can take a double portion on a Friday? This is a test from God. You know, brethren, this also shows us something about our lives.

There are times in our lives where things may just look so simple, but they're not necessarily simple. Or things may look so, you know, well, here it is. And yet, God said, now on this day you can collect double, but on these other days you can't. God had a reason for telling them what He did. It tested their faith. And of course, Jesus Christ tests our faith today, the New Testament manna. In the Old Testament the manna sustained the people. They prepared it a number of ways. They were able to bake it. They were able to boil it. They were able to do a number of things with it. And it sustained them, that and the quail. And of course, by analogy, Jesus Christ obviously sustains His people today spiritually.

One of the last things I wanted to mention, and there are so many parallels, I won't get into them all today, but in the Old Testament we see where the manna was memorialized. It was put into a pot. That pot was put into the Ark of the Covenant. And it was memorialized because God wanted the people of Israel through the ages to see that manna. Now, that manna didn't breed worms and stank after it was there for a while. It didn't melt as the other manna would melt. And so God, with His miracles, made it a point to memorialize this particular pot of manna. Now, let's turn to 1 Corinthians 10. 1 Corinthians 10. I'm beginning to narrow my focus here now as to what I really want to cover with you, specifically. 1 Corinthians 10 and 6. Now, these things became our examples. These things became our examples. What happened in the Old Testament teaches us things. Certainly we appreciate there are things that were done in the Old Testament we don't need to do today. We don't need to take little lambs or little goats and sacrifice them. We don't have to have a priest that comes between us and God. We go directly to God. There are a number of things that are different today than back then. But one thing that we do want to appreciate, and this is the gist of what I want to get at today. If you're taking notes and you want to put something across the top of your paper, it would be this. Jesus Christ is the true manna for today's believers. Jesus Christ is the true manna for today's believers. As I looked at what took place there in Exodus 16, and I was meditating on it and praying over it and asking God to help me to develop some material for you today, there were so many different analogies that I saw. I had to limit myself to five. I want to cover these five analogies with you today. Number one. Number one, the true manna is pure and white. That's going to teach us something. Let's take a look back there at Exodus 16. You will want to have something marking that chapter because we were going to come back and forth from there. Exodus 16, verse 14. And when the layer of dew lifted, there was on the surface of the wilderness a small round substance, as fine as frost on the ground. As fine as frost. So here we see a couple of things. It's a fragile sort of substance. It's not like you've got a big loaf of bread laying all over the place. It's a wafer-like material. But notice it's like frost. Now, frost is not black. Frost is not green. Frost is not purple. Frost is not yellow. Frost is white.

So here we've got this wafer-like substance. It's very thin, and it's white. We drop down to verse 31. And the house of Israel called its name, Mana. And it was like white coriander seed. And it tasted like wafers made with honey. So here we see where the mana physically was white. And that white mana symbolized purity. It symbolized righteousness. Purity and righteousness. On Passover evening, just a little more than a week from now, we'll be sitting there in the social hall. And there's going to come a point where a tray of unleavened bread is passed to you. Now, this tray will have unleavened bread that is brown. It's not going to be white. But it is bread. It is unleavened bread. And when that bread is passed to you, it shouldn't mean something to us. It represents Jesus Christ in all that he was. The mana represents Jesus Christ. Christ was pure. Christ was righteous. As we take all of that unleavened bread, and I always make a mention, whenever I'm conducting the service, let's not be... We're not trying to set speed records. The person who's conducting the service will ask a general prayer over the bread, breaks the bread, distributes the bread. And then I always ask, well, when you're taking that piece of bread, before you ingest it, before you eat it, say your own little prayer about that. Because what that bread represents is you're rededicating yourself to God the Father and Jesus Christ. And that bread represents purity. It represents righteousness. You're dedicating yourself. You're rededicating yourself to live as Christ lived. And just as that bread becomes a part of your body, you want Christ to be part of you spiritually. Now, let's turn to John, put a marker there in Exodus 16. Again, we'll be coming back. We'll go to John 1. John 1. And in verse 12, John 1.12. But as many as received him, Passover is for those who have received Jesus Christ as their personal Savior. Passover is not for everybody. Not everybody has accepted Christ as their personal Savior. Not everybody has counted the cost and given themselves and dedicated themselves to this way of life. But as many as received him, to them he gave the right to become the children of God, to those who believe and have faith in his name. So as you take that bread on Passover evening, you're also saying that you have faith in Jesus Christ. You have faith in him to be your Savior. You've got faith in him to be your soon-coming King, your Lord and your Master in this life. We drop down to verse 29. The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Jesus Christ takes away your sin and mine because we have received him. We have received the bread. We've accepted him as Savior and we accept that bread at the Passover service and then we ingest that bread. Let's go forward to John 6.

I'll be quoting quite a bit from John 6 in our Passover service. John 6, verses 49 through 51. John 6, verses 49 through 51. Where it says, The manna was special back then. It gave them sustenance. It gave them physical life. But that's as far as it can go.

It gave them physical life. Verse 50. This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that one may eat of it and not die. We're talking about another level of understanding, another level of bread. A spirit bread. The true manna. Which is Jesus Christ. Verse 51. I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I shall give is my flesh, which I give for the life of the world.

So here we see a spiritual component as we look at the New Testament manna, the real manna. Now one final scripture along these lines, this particular point, is found over here in Romans 12, verses 1 and 2. Romans 12, verses 1 and 2. Lee gave an interesting message today talking about preparation. We want to prepare ourselves for the Passover. We want to be the kind of people Christ wants us to be when we're there at Passover.

He wants us to rededicate ourselves to Him. He wants us to take of the bread and live. And notice here some of our marching orders here in Romans 12, verses 1 and 2. I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice. Christ the bread did that. He wants us to do this. Present your bodies a living sacrifice. Holy! Be wrenches. Be pure. Like that white substance we call manna.

A living sacrifice that is holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. That you may prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God. So this is what we're rededicating ourselves to do. We're rededicating ourselves to live just as it says right here. Every, not every year, but so many times over the course of the years I've been in the ministry, I just got a memo this last week from Victor Kubik saying, well, congratulations, you're now on the 35-year plaque at the home office.

It's a little early. It won't be until the Feast of Trumpets become Trumpets, Solomon and the Ministry, 35 years. And so you've got my Randy Delisandro on a plaque there in the home office, 35 years of service. And over all those years, over all the Passover's I've conducted in various states that I've worked, there's always some that want to come and they'll come for Passover, and then you don't see them the rest of the year.

And, you know, I don't forbid something to come to the Passover if they're baptized, if they feel lost between them and God. But if a person has been baptized and they only come for Passover, what's the point? The whole point of the Passover is rededicating ourselves to God. But if a person's going to come to Passover and never keep the Sabbath because they're working, or they don't keep the Holy Days because it's too far to drive or whatever, or they're not tithing like they should, or running the things that God wants us to do, they'll come to Passover.

People have come to me who've done those things. Well, Mr. D, you've got to understand. Well, I understand perfectly. You're not dedicated. It's as simple as that. If you were dedicated, you would be in Sabbath services. You would put God as the first priority. But you're not doing that. I mean, you want me to sugarcoat it some other way?

There's no other way to sugarcoat it. That's the way it is. You're not dedicated. So, brother, we have got to make sure that we do more because all of you in this room, you come week by week, and you go to the feast, and you do those things.

But we've got to make sure that we do what it says here. Not just warm a seat, like Len Martin said so many years ago, but just because you go to McDonald's, you sit at McDonald's, doesn't make you a hamburger. Just because we sit in church doesn't make us a Christian. There are things that we need to do. Romans 12, verses 1 and 2, shows us what we need to do. So, point number one is that the true manna is pure and white. And that is what we're to rededicate ourselves to, being pure and white, spiritually speaking. Number two of the five, number two, the true manna was a gift, and is a gift.

The true manna is a gift. Let's go back again to Exodus 16, verse 4. Exodus 16, verse 4, where it says, Then the Lord said to Moses, Behold, I will reign bread from heaven for you. And the people shall go out and gather a certain quota every day, that I may test them whether they will walk in my law or not. This bread that came down from God to them was a gift.

It was freely given by God. It cost Israel nothing. It cost them nothing. Brethren, just as today you have accepted Jesus Christ as your personal Savior, it is a gift by the grace of God. Your Sabbath-keeping doesn't wash away your sins. Sabbath-keeping, or holy day observing, or tithing, or what we eat or don't eat, we eat. None of those things have the mechanism by which sin is washed away. Now, do we need to keep the Sabbath and the Ten Commandments and the Holy Days and tithing and all those things?

Well, of course we do. But that doesn't wash away sin. The sin that is being washed away is by the shed blood of Jesus Christ our Savior. It is a free gift. Let's take a look at Romans 6. Romans 6. You know the Scripture, but we're going to read it. Romans 6, verse 23. Romans 6, verse 23. For the wages of sin is death. We can't earn salvation through obedience. We don't earn it. The only thing we earn is that the only thing we get wages of is a sin.

And the wages there is death. But the gift of God is eternal life and Christ Jesus our Lord. It is a gift. Now, we see in the Old Testament that manna was a gift. We see in the New Testament that the true manna, Jesus Christ, is a gift. So when we're there in our Passover chairs and that bread comes our way, how is this... how are we supposed to respond to this along these lines? James chapter 1, verse 17. James chapter 1, verse 17.

James 1, 17. James, the half-brother of Jesus Christ, an apostle, headquarters, the Jerusalem pastor. He says, Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above. And it comes down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning. So all the good gifts that God gives, whether it be manna of the Old Testament, whether it be manna of the new in terms of Jesus Christ, or the various gifts we've talked about in times gone by, the spiritual gifts that each of you have. You know, if you've got the Holy Spirit of God, that is a gift from God. And as you have God's Holy Spirit, you've got other gifts that have been given to you. Now, how do we relate to that in terms of the Passover? Well, in the Old Testament, the manna was there for them to use. And these gifts that we've been given by God are for us to use, to serve. We don't want to be people who say, Well, you know, God has given me this particular gift, but I'm going to bury it. I'm not going to use it. I'm afraid that, you know, if I start using this, the moral will be expected from me, and so on and so forth. You know, as Mickey mentioned today over in Ann Arbor, I would say the same thing here in Detroit. You know, some of you I've known for since the mid-1970s. Some of us go back a long, long way together. But I've been your pastor since July of 1997. And I've seen a lot of growth in various ones in this room. A lot of growth. In different ways. And God is pleased with that, and I'm happy to see it. You've taken the gift that God has given you, or gifts God has given you, and you've taken them and you've used those. And the local church here in Detroit has really prospered, and has been spiritually in a lot of ways, as a result of you doing just what the Bible says we should do. Keep on doing that. Keep on using those spiritual gifts that God has given you for the service of your brothers and sisters. 1 Peter 4 and verse 10. 1 Peter 4 and 10 where it says, As each one has received a gift, minister, or serve one to another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. So, brethren, this year at Passover, when you receive that little piece of bread and you're ingesting it, you're chewing it on it and you're about to swallow it, remember that you are a gifted individual. Gifted in the church of God. What are you going to do with your gift in this coming year? How are you going to rededicate the gifts that God has given you to serve your fellow man? That's something that the manna teaches us. It was a gift. Gifts must be used. Used to serve others, just as God did with the Old Testament manna He wants us to do as we serve one another.

Area number three, as I was looking at the Old Testament manna, and that was that the true manna is gathered day by day. The true manna is gathered day by day, again, with the exception of the Sabbath. They gathered twice as much on the sixth day. They didn't gather any on the seventh day. But the true manna was gathered day by day. Let's go back to Exodus 16 again. Exodus 16. Let us reread verse 4 and go to verse 5.

So here we see that they are to gather the manna daily. The Old Testament manna was to be gathered daily, twice as much on the sixth day to cover the Sabbath. But let's continue on with this thinking. Verse 12.

Notice here that as they are gathering day by day, they're going to be satisfied. So here we see that their hunger will be taken care of. So we begin to see some spiritual analogy there. That as we go before God, we are to go before God on a daily basis. And if we do that, our spiritual hunger will be satisfied. We drop down to Exodus 16 here, verse 16.

This is the thing which the Lord has commanded. Now when it comes to evening, isn't that true for all of us in this room? I see what some of you ladies eat, and I think, man, that would never last me. On the other hand, if some of you ladies watch what I eat, and they'll say, man, that guy, he's eating the whole week's worth of groceries in one sitting. But again, there's a spiritual analogy here. As Christians, some of us are more yielded than others of us. Let's be honest. Some of us are more converted than others. Others want more bread than others. And those who want more, they'll go out and gather more.

You know, I've got people in the congregation who continually will go to our website. I know of a number of members who will listen to sermons all throughout the week. They'll go to our website, they'll listen to one or two sermons, and they've got the kind of schedule where they can do that. Now, maybe you don't have that kind of schedule. But they'll listen to several sermons over the course of the week.

They'll read several booklets over the course of the week. They make sure they get an ample amount of Bible study, ample amount of prayer. They're doing their fasting. They want a lot of bread. So they go after the bread, and they gather the bread. And there are other Christians, well, they get a little bread. You know, they put in 15 minutes of Bible reading before they go to bed.

And they'll go after the sermon, and so forth. There's an analogy here for us. Now, we want to make sure in the analogy that we are the people who want to have great hunger for the Word of God. They were going out every day for the Word of God. We want to be satisfied and not be, you know, dying from lack of nutrition spiritually. Matthew 4, verse 4.

Jesus Christ here is fighting off Satan the Devil. And notice what Christ says, Matthew 4, 4. But He answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God. But by every word of God. Brethren, I ask myself, and I've got to ask myself, I'm your pastor. I'm the guy who has to stand up here every Sabbath. And if you don't think it's a lot of work, especially when you've been in an area of 16, 17 years, and you look at all the hours spent in all the sermons given, getting ready for the Passover, how can I do it a little differently this year?

It is a real labor. And so I've got to go and I covet your prayers along those lines, where God would inspire me to give you something worth listening to that would feed you. And of course, you've got to take the same approach, that we want to just really dig into the word of God.

And some people I see in the church really do that. I can think of one individual who... I'm thinking about one of our newer ministers that was talking to him the other day, and he was making mention about how he was going into this one subject and analyzing this one subject. Boy, that really sounds interesting. Now, I'd never even thought of that subject.

But he had thought about that. He had heard a sermon from somebody else. He got a sentence out of that sermon, took it, and was really running with it. And as he was discussing with me, my mouth was, Boy, that's really good spiritual food there. See, now we all need to be that way, each and every one of us. And that's one of the things we should be doing as a congregation, before and after services, having these wonderful conversations about the bread we just ate.

You know, I was just talking to so-and-so over here, and they were saying this about this section of Scripture that got me to thinking about this section over here. And I make mention about the gentleman we've got in the prison down there in Toledo, Edward Taylor. That's a wonderful guy. You know, he won't be out of jail for a while. But I would dare say I would put him up against most church members in terms of his Bible knowledge. Now, we might say, Well, yeah, well, what else has he got to do?

Well, you know, he works there at the prison. He worked his way up the ladder, and he's working there in the kitchen, which is one of the better jobs to have. But I mean, I'm talking to Ed, and I'll bring up some Scripture, and he'll say, Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah! Oh, that reminds me over here about Isaiah, that he'll go in.

That reminds me over there. Now, here's a guy who's probably about 30 years of age. And all he gets is our literature. He can't go online. He can't get CDs. He just has to get literature as, you know, as slowly as it comes into him. But he reads it voraciously, and he puts it up here. He wants bread. He wants bread, and he eats that bread. He enjoys that bread. He gathers it day by day.

Over here in Matthew 6, the model prayer, Matthew 6, verse 11, where it says, Give us this day our daily bread. Notice the emphasis of Jesus Christ, red letter or throughout. Give us this day our daily bread. Now, obviously, it could be talking about our physical daily food. But Christ has always wanted to bring out the spiritual aspect of things, and certainly this would be true here. Give us this day our daily spiritual bread. So we will be, our hunger will be satisfied. So our need will be satisfied. Now, let's go back to Exodus 16, because I'm not through with this point here about the true man of being gathered day by day. There's an interesting section here. Let's go back to Exodus 16, verses 19-21.

Talking about the manna. Moses said, Let no one leave any of it until morning. Not withstanding they did not heed Moses, but some of them left part of it until morning and had bred worms and stank. Moses was angry with them. So they gathered every morning everyone according to his need, and when his son became hot it melted. So here you've got people who say, Well, Moses said not to get more than we need. And people said, Well, we'll just hoard it. What does he know? We'll sock this stuff away, and we'll get nice and rotund and jolly. Well, when you don't follow God's ways, when you don't follow God's will, what does it say here? It says, The thing began to stink.

When you and I do things that aren't pleasing to God, it stinks. When we kind of walk off onto our own and say, This is what I want to do, God says, That stinks.

But keep on going with the story, because it doesn't stop there. Keep on going with the story here, verses 22-26. So it was on the sixth day they gathered twice as much bread, two oomars for each one, and all the rulers of the congregations came and told Moses.

And he said to them, This is what the Lord has said. Tomorrow is the Sabbath, rest, the Holy Sabbath of the Lord. Bake what you will bake today, boil what you will boil, and lay it up for yourself all the remains to be kept until the morning. So they laid it up until the morning as Moses commanded, and it did not stink. It's the same stuff! They gathered twice as much on Tuesday, that's going to stink. They gathered twice as much on Friday, that doesn't stink.

So what shows, brethren, that God, sometimes when you take a look at things, we seem to see an equation here, but not in God's eyes. We have to know what God is thinking. It's the same manner, but when they aren't collecting it according to God's way and doing it God's way, it stinks. When you do it God's way, it doesn't stink. It seems to be the very same thing. But God says, just like with us keeping the Sabbath, keeping the Sabbath is pleasant to God, but keeping Sunday stinks. It's as simple as that. There's something else here, and that's in verse 23. We see where they were using a preparation day. As I mentioned earlier today in Ann Arbor, I think that we as a church, unfortunately, we live in Satan society.

So many times Satan wants to put a shackle around each of our ankles as his slaves. In so many cases, husbands work, wives work, and if they've got older children, older children work, all in an effort to pay the bills, to make ends meet. That's a sad thing we have in society. The day of preparation, which is Friday, has largely gone by the board with so many people in the church. Several years ago, and I'm always bad at this when I say a couple years ago, it was probably four years ago, but we had that beautiful Sabbath seminar for the ladies. We had a discussion where Paula Ashley and Paige Lloyd did an awful lot of research. We had about a hundred and some women, and they talked about how we as wives can make the Sabbath day a pleasure for our families. And there was a discussion about, in a Jewish culture, Monday is not Monday, it's X number of days until the Sabbath, and Tuesday is one fewer day, and the whole week was looked at as being preparation, talking about what Lee was saying. Preparation, getting ready for the Sabbath. It gets your mind in a certain mindset, and God wants them to have a certain mindset here. The Sabbath is so important, you know, that we want to have a preparation time. Preparation time. So we want to gather properly. We want to gather the right way. If we do that, it's a blessing. A great blessing.

Over here in Luke 9, we see a discussion about how 5,000 were fed, Luke 9. And it's interesting, because this is, you know, there's a parallel version over there in John 6.

This is during the Passover time, a time where bread is always discussed. And so, you know, what you have is, and I don't have time to go through all of this here, but you know, you've got the few loaves and the few fishes, and Christ says a prayer, and next thing you see is, all 5,000 men are filled. Filled with bread. Now, it's 5,000 men, it says. It's not counting ladies, not counting children. So you may have anywhere from 10,000 to 15,000 people there. A couple of fish, a couple of loaves, and Christ is able to feed everybody. But as Christ was teaching them about bread, and how He would provide bread on a daily basis, take a look at what it says here, Luke 9, verse 23.

What? Take up His cross daily and follow Me. Take up His cross daily and follow Me. Yes, the true man must be followed, must be gathered day by day. When we come to Passover services next week from tomorrow, in the evening, we are rededicating ourselves to gathering the manna day by day, living the way God wants us to live, not going to the right hand or to the left hand, not doing what looks good to us, but doing what God explicitly commands us to do. Okay, area number four. Of the five, area number four, as I look at the manna. Number four is that the true manna was crushed. The true manna was crushed. Let's go back to Exodus 16 again. Exodus 16. I want to reread verse 23. We were talking about it as a verse talking about preparation. But here in Exodus 16, verse 23, it says, Then he said to them, This is what the Lord has said. Tomorrow is the Sabbath rest, the holy Sabbath of the Lord. Bake what you will bake today. Now, let's put in the back of our mind the word bake for just a second. And boil what you will boil. Again, let's separate in our mind the word boil. We've got the word bake, we've got the word boil. The context is manna. They're baking the manna. They're boiling the manna. Now, to bake the manna, you've got to take this stuff, this little, this fine wafer that's on the ground, probably about the width of a blade of grass, you know, but you've got, you know, obviously you've got to pick a lot of that up. And so you take that and you crush it. You make it and you take, you mill it. So it's like a powder or like a, like some sort of a meal, and then you can make cakes out of it. You can make bread out of it. You can put it, you know, just like you go to the store. If, you know, they had a store, you go to Kroger's back in the day, you get the flour, you bake flour out of this manna. It's crushed. You don't want to eat it that way, then it says you can boil it. They can put it in a pot. Now, how do you boil something? You need fire. So you're looking at crushing things, you're looking at things with fire. Both of those are symbolic of trial. The manna of the Old Testament had its trial. Obviously, the new manna, the true manna, Jesus Christ, had a trial. He was crushed. He had a fiery trial. What does that say to you and I on Passover evening? And the rest of our Christian experience, not just Passover evening, but every day of our experience. Let's take a look at a scriptural read on Passover evening, Isaiah chapter 53.

Isaiah chapter 53 verses 3 through 5.

You know, Jesus Christ's trial was not just being physically tortured. That was a big part of it. That was not all of it by any stretch. His trial began the night before when Judas Iscariot began to betray him, and everyone else began to flee from him.

All the people who said, well, we love you and we'll never leave you, well, they left.

And so mentally, emotionally, he felt alone. That was a part of his trial, going through what he was going to go through for them. And he felt abandoned. Isaiah chapter 53 verse 3, he is despised and rejected by men.

That's talking about something that's emotional. That's something that's mental in nature. A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. In my notes here, I've underlined the word or put it in a different color, the word sorrows and grief. That's not something of being hit with a whip. That's something of the mind, of the emotions. And we hit it where our face is from and he was despised, and we did not esteem him. Again, all this deals with the emotional and mental frame of mind. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. Griefs and sorrows. Jesus Christ was not Mr. Spock. He was a man of emotion. Deep emotion, good emotion, beautiful emotion. And when he went through what he went through, all of that was aggrieved.

Now, in Midway point through verse 4, we see, Yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. Now, all those words actually can relate to the psyche as well, but I look at those more as a physical thing. Strict and smitten, afflicted. He was wounded for our transgressions, verse 5. He was bruised for our iniquities.

The chastisement of our peace was upon him, and by his stripes we are healed. Christ's sacrifice was a total sacrifice. Mental, emotional, physical. And all of that was a part of a grand spiritual sacrifice.

Years ago, Steve Albury and I went to the movie house, and we saw Mel Gibson's, I think it was called The Passion of the Christ or something like that.

And there were those who said, well, I didn't need to see that, I understand what the Bible says, and I appreciate people who say that, but I wanted to see that. And especially when it got to the point where we have that section of Scripture. And of course, Hollywood never does anything right, but you began to get a flavor for what Jesus went through.

You know, when he was being tortured physically, how they took the whip and they were laying open every part of his back, and the back of his legs, and so on and so forth. And when they were thoroughly done with that, they flipped him over and began working over the front side of his body. Now, I had never really contemplated that. You know, whipping apart his chest and all, you know, right from head to toe.

I had never really contemplated that. And when I saw that, that left an impression. That's why a lot of people who didn't have a good, strong constitution didn't want to go see that movie. It was a tough thing to watch. But Jesus Christ, the manna, was ground. He was put to the fire. And notice what it says here. Let's move from that Scripture to one we will read again on Passover, 1 Peter 2.

1 Peter 2. Starting in verse 20. 1 Peter 2. For what credit is it if when we were beaten for our faults, we take it patiently? But when you do good and suffer and you take that patiently, this is commendable before God. You know, I talk with so many people. You know, the beauty of the fact that we've got sermons that go out on the Internet, I get e-mail from literally all around the world. People will contact me or they'll e-mail me and they'll tell me about their situation. I've had people call me from all over the world just to talk.

And so many times it's ladies who are calling and they're talking, and a lot of times it's about other ladies where they work, they're backstabbing at work, the way maybe their children, their grown adult children are treating them. And when you're doing good, when you're doing right, when you're doing the things God wants you to do, and family members want to hurt you for that, they say all sorts of unkind things about you simply because you are taking a stand for what's right. That hurts. You know, especially for a lady where that child came out of her body, and that child now is an adult woman on her own, mom, you just really don't see the light.

You don't see what things are. And so here we have the Scripture that says, you know, even when you're doing good and you suffer, that's one thing, but, you know, or you're doing bad and you're suffering, that's one thing, but when you're doing good and you're suffering, like Christ, He was sinless. He never did anything wrong. All He ever wanted to do was help people and serve people and be their sacrifice. And then notice what it says here, verse 21, And over and over and over the years, I may mention to you that this, we use that as a principle about following the example of Christ, but explicitly it's talking about when Christ was being tortured, the worst possible circumstances.

When people were horribly treating Him, He didn't respond in kind. And when you and I are taking that bread on Passover, we need to make sure we're not responding in a negative kind toward people. Now, only you and God may know how well you're doing with that, or how well I'm doing with that. You know, you might not go up and slap somebody, but if you're wishing them all sorts of ill in your mind and in your heart because they've done you ill or they've done your children ill, well, that's not what Christ did here.

And you know, brethren, as we get closer to the end of the age and there's more and more things that are put upon us, like the first century church in terms of persecution, we have to be people who are converted. If we don't have a high level of inversion and all these things are taking place at the end of the age, as it says there in Matthew 24, many, many's love will wax cold.

Many will be offended. Well, why did their love wax cold? Why were they offended? Their love waxed cold and they were offended because they didn't have enough love of Christ in them. They weren't partaking of that bread and getting as much bread as they could on a daily basis. The conversion level was shallow. And because it was shallow, you know, all it took was, you know, attack my kids, hurt my kids, then we get hurt. Verse 22, who committed no sin nor was the sea found in his mouth, who when he was reviled did not revile in return, when he suffered did not threaten, but he committed himself to him who judges righteously.

Notice the word. In that horrible trial, he committed himself. He rededicated and dedicated himself. In a Passover service, that's what we do. We rededicate ourselves. Even under the worst of circumstances, we want to be just like the true God, like the true manna. Area number five. Area number five. The true manna was memorialized. The true manna was memorialized. Let's go back one last time to Exodus 16. Exodus 16, verses 32-34. Exodus 16, verse 32. Moses said, This is the thing which the Lord has commanded, fill an omar with it, talking about the manna, to be kept for your generations, that they may see the bread with which I fed you in the wilderness, when I brought you on the land of Egypt.

And Moses said to Aaron, Take a pot, put an omar of manna in it, and lay it up before the Lord to be kept for your generations. As the Lord commanded Moses, so Aaron laid up before the testimony to be kept.

Now, let's add to this scripture one found over in Hebrews 9. Hebrews 9, verse 4. Hebrews 9-4. Actually, let's begin on verse 3. Hebrews 9-3. In the first couple of verses, talk about the tabernacle that was on earth, being attacked like a tabernacle that's in heaven. And verse 3 talks about what's behind the second veil, the part of the tabernacle which is called the holiest of all.

We refer to it many times as the holy of holies. This represents the very throne room of God. In that throne room of God, you had something very important. Notice verse 4. Which had the golden censer and the ark of the covenant overlaid on all sides of gold, in which were the golden pot that had the manna. The golden pot that had the manna, Aaron's rod that butted, and the tablets of the covenant. So with that ark of the covenant, you had those three items.

That pot of manna, Aaron's rod, and the tablets of the covenant. The basis for the old covenant. And so you see here that the manna was memorialized. And why is this important? You know, in our society today, we've got people who want to have what they call the Lord's Supper, and they'll do it every Sunday.

Or they'll do it quarterly. Or they'll do it semi-annually. No. The Bible says we are to make a memorial. Passover is a memorial. It's not going to turn there, but it says that over in Exodus 12 and 14. Talking about the Passover, it says, So this day shall be to a memorial. Exodus 12, 14. Last scripture for today, though, is found over here in 1 Corinthians 11. 1 Corinthians 11. And this is the scripture that we begin our Passover ceremony with, not tomorrow, but a week from tomorrow.

1 Corinthians 11, verse 23. 1 Corinthians 11, 23. For I receive from the Lord that which I also delivered to you. The Apostle Paul was very careful to follow God's instructions carefully. He didn't gather on the Sabbath day, to use the analogy of the manna. When God says to gather twice, He gathered twice. When He said to gather once, He gathered once. For I to receive from the Lord that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the same night in which He was betrayed took bread. When He given thanks, He broke it and said, Take, eat this in my body, which is broken for you.

Do this in remembrance of Me. A remembrance is a memorial. Memorials are done once a year. That's why we do Passover once a year. Look at it. This 23 shows Passover comes once a year. But a memorial is always done once a year. In the same manner, you also took the cup after supper, saying, This cup is a new covenant in my blood.

This do as often as you drink it in remembrance of Me. So twice here, in the face of a couple of verses, we're talking about a memorial. And you were coming up to Passover on Sunday, April 13th. And you were memorializing the fact that you personally have a relationship with Jesus Christ. It's something that you're keeping as a memorial. You are remembering what you said to Jesus Christ about you accepting Him as your personal Savior. Each of you have been baptized. And, minister, you were in some kind of a watery tank or a river or something, a pool, and the minister asked you if you have accepted Christ as your personal Savior.

And you said yes. And so Passover serves as a memorial of the fact that you said yes to accepting Him as your personal Savior. We don't use Easter. Easter represents Christ's resurrection. The Bible doesn't say to use that as a memorial. We don't keep Christmas. Christmas shows Christ's birth. The Bible nowhere says we should be keeping Christ's birth as a memorial. But the Bible does say we need to memorialize His death.

The Passover. And that is what we do. So today, brethren, we've taken a look at Jesus Christ, the true manna for today's believers. Let me just reiterate very quickly the five points we've covered today. And I frankly could have had 15 of them as I went through. I said this is too many for a 45 or 50-minute message. But maybe you'll go back and take a look at that and find the things I could have talked about but didn't talk about.

For example, I'll just give you what your appetite is for your own personal study. You talked about how the manna was round. Well, something that's round people would say, well, that typifies something that is eternal. There's no beginning to something that's round. There's no end to something that's round. It's eternal in scope. Christ is eternal. Now, you go back and you get the other nine or ten different things that you could have seen there. And I think it would be an interesting study for you. But we said here today, number one, the true manna is pure and white.

Pure and white. And we want to rededicate ourselves to being pure and white, spiritually speaking. Number two, we said the true manna is a gift. We want to thank God for the gift that He has given us in Christ, but we also want to use our gifts in service of our fellow man.

Number three, we said the true manna is gathered day by day. How are we at getting our daily bread? Number four, we said the true manna was crushed. When we are crushed, how do we fare, you and I? And number five, the true manna was memorialized. Brethren, it's coming Sunday, April 13th, as you memorialize in your personal life the fact that you've accepted Christ as your Savior.

Let's all of us make that count for something. That when a time comes for us to be resurrected, Christ will just grab us and hug us and say, I'm so glad you made that decision, and you were so true to that decision all of your life. Every Passover for you is deeply meaningful. Every Passover for you is a turning point in your life, and I appreciate what you've done. So, today we talked about Jesus Christ, the true manna for today's believers.