Our Passover Preparation

In about 45 days from now, we're going to be sitting down or kneeling down. Some will be sitting and some will be kneeling to wash one another's feet. And after the foot washing, we will be taking the Lord's Passover. We really understand the Passover and the preparation for it. Today we're going to focus on Passover preparation. You have a little over six weeks to prepare, about 45 days. The need for Passover originated with the sin of Satan in one sense, Satan in the demons, and then Satan's seduction of Adam and Eve through lies and deceit. So the need for Passover really goes back to how sin entered into the universe through Satan, the devil, and the demons, and then Satan's deception of Adam and Eve in the garden, and after the angelic realm, sin, humankind, sin. By one man's sin, sin entered into the world, and thus the need for a Redeemer, and thus the need for Passover, because the wages of sin is death. If you would, let's go now to Romans chapter 5. The Catholics use this verse sometimes, or these series of verses here, to talk about original sin. Sin did enter into the world through one man's sin, and in Romans chapter 5, Paul does a comparison and contrast between the first Adam, the physical man Adam, and the second Adam, Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men, why, for all have sinned. We don't need a Redeemer just because Adam sinned, but we need a Redeemer, and we need a Passover because all have sinned, and that includes you and I.

All have sinned and come short of the glory of God. For until the law, sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed, or reckoned, or charged, or laid to the account when there is no law. That is in the ultimate sense. Nevertheless, death reigned from Adam to Moses. See, the law was not codified until the time of Moses, but the law is eternal. The law is spiritual. The law was already there, but the law had not been codified until the days of Moses. And even though it had not been codified, it was still in effect in the sense that the wages of sin is death, as it says in Romans 6 and verse 23. Brother, we're going to talk about some very important, and some would say, well, that's very deep, but it's basic, fundamental, foundational kind of understandings that really all of us in the Church of God so desperately need. For until the law was, sin was in the world, see, you wouldn't have had sin if law was not in the world.

Nevertheless, death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression, who was the figure of him that was to come.

But not as the offense so also is the free gift, for through the offense of one, many be dead, much more than through the grace of God, and the gift by grace, which is by one man Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many. You can get lost in Paul's going back into in his comparison and contrast, sin entered into the world through Adam, and death passed on to men in that all have sinned. He doesn't repeat that as he did in verse 12.

And then, on the other hand, by contrast, through Jesus Christ and the grace of God, everyone can live. They can live eternally. Also, in verse 19, For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners in the sin entered the world, all have sinned. So by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous. Now, some try to use that in the Protestant world to say that because Jesus Christ obeyed, you don't have to obey. But what is the context and what is he really saying here? Once again, we read it and say, For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, and you have to add what it says in verse 12 if you want to look at it individually and specifically, So by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous. How? It's not that his righteousness is automatically imputed to us. How was he righteous in this sense? Verse 20 and 21, Moreover, the law entered that the offense might abound, but where sin abounded, grace did much more abound. That as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. Jesus Christ was obedient unto death, and because he was obedient unto death, many can be made righteous because through his sacrifice, or if you want to use the word Passover, our sins can be forgiven and we can be reconciled to God. What shall we say then? Paul then says, well some are going to take this as if the law has been done away and it's just grace.

What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? God forbid no way, no how. That's the power and strength of the Greek. How shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein?

When God instituted the first Passover, it was instituted to deliver Israel from Egypt. Egypt is symbolic of sin and death. Now, their servitude in the symbolic sense was physical, but it also had deep spiritual implications as well. So we go back to Exodus 12, Exodus 12, and we'll see the first Passover was instituted, God instructing Moses on the various aspects, facets of that Passover.

In Exodus 12, verse 3, Speak unto all the congregation of Israel, saying, In the tenth day of this month, they shall take to them every man a lamb, according to the house of their fathers, a lamb for an house. In verse 6, And shall keep it up until the fourteenth day of the same month, and the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it in the evening. And they shall take the blood and strike it on the two sideposts and on the upper doorposts of the houses wherein they shall eat it.

And in verse 13, And the blood shall be to you as 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 smite the land of Egypt. So continuing now in verse 26. So very clear instructions that they were to get this lamb to put it up on the tenth day of the month, to keep it until between the two evenings, just as you're merging into the fourteenth, they're going to kill it, and then observe the Passover on the evening of the fourteenth, just after sunset, as we shall be doing.

And then the next day, of course, they spoiled the Egyptians and so on, and they left on the fifteenth, as it says in Numbers. We're not so much interested in that right now. We more want to focus on the Passover aspect of it, the next meaning, and the preparation thereof. In verse 26, it shall come to pass, when your children shall say unto you what mean you by this service, then you shall say it is a sacrifice of the Lord's Passover, who passed over the houses of the children of Israel in Egypt, when He smote the Egyptians and delivered our houses, and the people bowed the head and worshiped.

And the children of Israel went away, and did as the Lord had commanded Moses, and Aaron so did they. And it came to pass that at midnight, the Lord smote all the firstborn in the land of Egypt. That Hebrew word, that name of God there, is Yahweh, the Eternal. People talk about the death angel passed through. You see here very clearly. It came to pass that at midnight, the Yahweh, the Eternal, smote all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh that sat upon his throne, of the firstborn of the captive that was in the dungeon, and all the firstborn of cattle.

And Pharaoh rose up at midnight, he and all his servants and all the Egyptians, and there was a great cry in Egypt, and there was not a house in which there was not one dead. So that's the institution of that first passover to free Israel from Egyptian slavery. But Egypt being symbolic in the spiritual sense of sin and death, and we have all been, or maybe we still are in, spiritual Egypt, and the way that they were delivered was through the blood of the Lamb, symbolic, of the blood of the Lamb of God who was to come.

Remember one time when they saw Jesus coming, they said, Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world. The greater purpose, of course, of Passover is to deliver us from enslavement of sin and death. We were all once there in spiritual Egypt. Romans 6.23, why do we so desperately need to pass over?

Here's a memory scripture for you. Romans 6.23, we should all know it. The wages of sin is death. But the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. I heard someone speaking today, and they were talking about salvation is a gift. Brethren, we are living in some of the most troubleous times in human history.

There is great confusion every place you look. There's been confusion, and we'll continue to be, confusion in the Church of God. There is confusion in the Word. There is confusion on every hand. We know who the author of confusion is. The author of confusion is Satan the Devil.

And the way that you can be protected, of course, is to put on the whole armor of God as described in Ephesians chapter 6. And one of the things that it says, above all, taking the shield of faith, whereby you'll be able to quench all the fiery darts of Satan. Of course, you get into what is faith. Faith is inextricably linked to obedience. Salvation is inextricably linked to obedience. Now I make this quote, what I did that parenthetically.

You hear people talk, and the Bible says, for that salvation is a gift. The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. So you can make the statement. No amount of commandment-keeping can earn you salvation. However, can you have salvation and not be obedient? No. Otherwise, Christ would be the minister of sin, as it talks about in Galatians. You have to watch out for all the subtleties. You can make a true statement. No amount of commandment-keeping will earn salvation.

And you can line up three or four scriptures that say salvation is the gift of God. And so it is. But, on the other hand, can you have salvation and remain in your sins? You remain in Egypt? Not accept the Lord's Passover? And even after you accept the Lord's Passover, you go through initial repentance, and you go through initial justification.

Does God forgive sins that are not repented of? And is it repentance or a requirement for receiving God's Spirit? According to Peter, on the day of Pentecost, when he preached that sermon, after he preached, long about Acts 2.36-37, they were pricked in their heart, and they said, men and brethren, what shall we do? And Peter said, repent, be baptized in the name of Jesus for their mission of sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

It was conditional. Thus, salvation is a gift. You can't earn it. It is only through Jesus Christ, because it's only through Him that past sins can be forgiven or those you commit in the future. But obedience and faith and salvation are all inextricably linked together. One of the greatest themes of Passover is freedom. Freedom from sin and death. Note the words of the Apostle Paul in Ephesians 2. Ephesians 2. One of the great themes is freedom. Israel was freed from slavery in Egypt after that first Passover.

We can be freed from our past. Of course, many of us want to drag our sins around with us and not totally believe that our sins are forgiven and removed as far as the east is from the west. That's another obstacle that many of us need to overcome.

Ephesians 2.1, And you have he quicken, made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins. Wherein at times past you walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince and the power of the air, that spirit that now works in the children of disobedience, among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lust of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and where by nature the children of wrath, even as others.

The only way that we can be brought back from sin and death is through the sacrifice of Christ. And the only way that the sacrifice of Christ, our Passover, can be applied to our lives if we humble ourselves, surrender, submit, and repent before God in Christ. In Romans 3, verse 23. Over the past two and a half years, I've said this many times here in services about the book of Romans.

The book of Romans is a blueprint for world peace. You want to have peace in the world? If all the nations would apply the book of Romans, we'd have peace in the world.

The first chapter of Romans talks about how the nations, the non-Israelites, have sinned. Chapter 2 talks about how the Israelites have sinned. So whether you be Jew or Gentile, as Paul writes, all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.

So chapter 1, he takes the Gentiles to task. Chapter 2, he takes the Jews to task. Chapter 3, he begins to summarize. And the great summary verse is Romans 3.23. Romans 3.23. For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. So how are we free? No matter whether we are Jew, Gentile, no matter what our ethnic origin is, whether we be Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, or you can go from the far east to the near east, whether we be Pakistani or whether we be Iranians or whatever we might be, we may be Brits, we may be Americans.

There's only one way. It's only one way.

Because all have sinned, being justified freely by His grace. The word justified means to pay the debt. There's no longer a debt there. Now that gets into, you could keep all the commandments. You could do all the sacrifices and ritualistic law, and you could even do the spiritual law. But that won't pay for sins that are passed. Only the blood of Christ, the Lamb of God, slain from the foundation of the world, can pay for those sins justified. I'd like for you to draw a line down the middle of your notepad. On the one side of that line, you write in your sins, on the other side of that line, you write justified. At your axis point, at the top of the vertical line, write, repent. At the bottom of that line, you write faith in Jesus Christ. How do you move from in your sins over to justified? It is through repentance and faith in Jesus Christ. Now, repentance is also inextricably linked to the law in the sense that you wouldn't know what to repent of unless the law had said, as Paul talks about in Romans 7, unless the law had said, you shall not, and in that case he used adultery, commit adultery, or whatever the sin might be. The law, of course, defines sin. Being justified freely by His grace, His carous, C-H-A-R-I-S, and the Greek, His divine favor through the redemption. The word redemption means the buying back power. You were a slave. You were sentenced to death. And Jesus Christ, the Redeemer, through His death, bought you back. You didn't have to pay anything like silver and gold. As Peter talks about in 1 Peter 1, we were not redeemed by silver and gold, but through the precious blood of Jesus Christ, which you cannot put a value on that. Redemption that is in Jesus Christ, whom God has set forth, to be a propitiation. The word propitiation means a go-between. He went in your stead. You didn't have to die through faith in His blood. Remember at the top of the line, repentance. The bottom of the line, faith in the sacrifice of Christ. You have to have at least those two things to accept the Lord's Passover to move to the other side of the line justified. Now, some in the church perhaps have the idea that if you draw that line, and like if you were to put the crooked line, one side, one side, this moment I'm justified, and this moment I'm not justified, this moment I'm justified, that's not the way it works. Once you move over to justified, you are justified until you commit the unpardonable sin. So you go before the throne of God continually, confessing your sins, and walking in a justified position with God in Christ. Now, if you don't do that, and eventually you move over back in your sins, as it were, and cut off quench God's spirit, then there's no way back across that line. And it is a fearful thing to fall in the hands of the living God. So God has set forth to be a perpetuation through faith in His blood to declare His righteousness. In other words, He kept His Word. He made a promise that He would send a Redeemer for the remission of sins that are passed through the forbearance of God. When the first Passover was instituted, God instructed the Israelites to kill lambs, sprinkle the blood on the doorposts of their dwellings, as we have already read, and as we have read when God saw the blood, He would pass over that home. Today, the blood is supposed to be sprinkled on our hearts, our innermost being, the center of thought and emotion. Let's go to Hebrews 10. Hebrews 10, verse 19. In Hebrews 10, verse 19, Having therefore brethren boldest to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He had consecrated for us through the veil, that is to say, His flesh.

And having a high priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart and full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water. Now, under the Old Covenant, those sacrifices that they performed, and the blood that they would put on from the doorpost to later, the blood that they used in the temple ceremony, they did what the Old Testament word was to cover, to make an atonement.

Hebrew word is kafar, K-H-A-P-H-A-R, various spellings, and it means to cover. It covered their sins, and they were ceremonially accepted, and they could enter into the congregation. Today, through the blood of Christ, we can enter into the holiest of all. That is, we appear before the throne of God. We're not literally there in the sense of, we see it all, but we have an audience with God and with Christ. You turn back to Hebrews 4, we'll see that. Of course, it's right here. I just read it, having therefore boldest entered into the holiest of all. In Hebrews 4, verse 14, seeing then that we have a great high priest that has passed into the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession.

For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feelings of our infirmities, but was in all points tempted, tested, tried as we are, yet without sin, let us therefore come boldly under the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. So the goal is to purge us of our evil conscience. So does now Hebrews 9, verse 13. Now to purge the evil conscience. Conscience has to do with the knowing within yourself.

Do you know what's right and what's wrong? Well, pretty much, I know what's right and what's wrong. And the conscience, we're born, we're morally illiterate when we're born. I don't care if we're born in the church or we're born to a family that are Buddhist. We are morally illiterate and we have to be taught, and our conscience has to be framed and trained. The thing about Christianity, true Christianity, is that the sins that are passed can be removed forever, as it says in the Psalms as far as the east is from the west. And the conscience purged. Now we still, in our human flesh, have a remembrance.

Well, we remember the time that we did X, Y, or Z, which was sin. But God does not hold that against you. And I struggle at times with, I have a tendency to want to bring up things that I've done in the past and act sort of like Job's three friends. I want to give a sermon one day, telling Job's three friends. When the calamity happened to Job, his three friends immediately said, Well, Job, this has happened, you have sinned some great sin, and you just fess up, confess your sin, and everything will be alright.

And they went round and round with this. And Job continued to say, Oh, no, I haven't sinned. I'm righteous, and he justified himself instead of God. But the conscience can be purged. And it's through faith that you come to understand that God is not holding, if you have repented, He's not holding the past against you. In Hebrews 9, verse 13, The blood of bulls and goats in the ashes of an heifer spring clean, the unclean, sanctifies to the purifying of the flesh, that made him ceremonially clean, as we've already mentioned, to enter into the congregation. How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?

So God wants us to be cleaned up from the inside out. The purifying of the flesh does not purify the heart, does not purify the mind, it does not purge us of evil in the sense that the blood of Christ and faith in Christ can do, and the washing by the water of the Word. So through repentance and exercising faith in Christ, we can be purged of sin, and by eating the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth, we can ingest the very mind of God.

You want the mind of God? Well, this can be written on your inward parts through the Holy Spirit. And then it'll be like this. It'll be written on your inward parts, it'll be written on your mind. This will be your bonnet, your helmet of salvation. Part of the armor says, and hope, which is the helmet of salvation. So with this little overview that we've given, you may call it little, you may call it great, you may call it whatever you want to call it.

It's foundational, it's fundamental. We all need to understand it. What are the five great essentials for foot washing, for eating and drinking the Lord's Passover? We're going to list these five essentials now and talk about them. First of all, we have to be reconciled to God.

Remember that verse, Matthew 23, 23, the weightier matters of the law? See, the Pharisees did all of the outward things. They were careful what they ate, they were careful how they ate, washing up the elbows before they ate. They boasted of their fasting twice during the week, where they would abstain from certain foods. They boasted of their righteousness on every hand. They did all kind of outward things. Careful to pay tithe of mint anise and cum in the little things that you grow in your garden, little herbs.

But Christ said in Matthew 23, 23, that you pay tithe of mint anise and cum in, but you have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith. These ought you to have done and not leave the other undone. But judgment, mercy, and faith were the important ones. So, reconcile to God in Christ. How do you become reconciled to God in Christ? How do you confess your sins and cry out for, and that's judgment, cry out for God's mercy. He's faithful in just to forgive you all in righteousness. Then he says, go and sin no more. Go walk in faith. So, to take the Passover, Passover preparation someone like preparing for baptism. First thing, reconcile to God. Second thing, reconcile to your brother, to one another. Reconciled to our neighbors is another way to put it. The next thing is discerning the physical body and life of Christ, which was given for our sins. The Son of God died for our sins. It is only through the resurrection that he was raised as a glorious life-giving Spirit. So, you discern the body and life of Christ. That's number three. Number four. We must also discern the spiritual body of Christ, the Church. That's one another. Because we'll probably read the Scripture later in 1 Corinthians 10, where it says, no you're not. The bread you eat, that is one bread. And when you eat of that bread, you're saying that we are all one. So, you don't want to eat the Passover knowing that you're at odds. That you're at odds that you're somebody there who holds the grudge against you, or you hold the grudge against somebody else. You know, the taking of the Passover this year will be a very unusual thing, in some ways, with what all has transpired in the Church of God. And how can we sit down in good conscience and take the Passover? Something to really consider. And then, another aspect is to realize we must keep the feast with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. Now, that keeping the feast with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth goes on all the time. In one sense, Passover is to be observed every day. In that, now listen to this, in that we continually are challenged to walk in a reconciled position with God and Christ. When you sin each day, maybe you go a day without sinning. But if and when you sin, you want to be reconciled to God and to Christ. Secondly, you want to be reconciled to each member of the body of Christ, to your neighbor. You want to understand that it's only through the blood of Christ, this sacrifice, that we can be reconciled. So those aspects continually be for us. For one to be reconciled to God, they have to be convicted of sin, repent of sin, exercise faith in the sacrifice of Christ, be baptized and receive the Holy Spirit. And then, as we have noted, to exercise judgment, mercy, and faith with God and with our brothers and sisters.

So this requires giving up self and being led by the Spirit of God. And be summarized broadly by what I call the three S's. I talk about the three C's, conviction, commitment, and courage, which should lead to a fourth, and that is conversion. But the three S's, surrender, submit, and serve. Let's notice now Romans. Paul picks up on this theme of surrender, submit, and serve after baptism. But before baptism, baptism is an open confirmation that you're entering into a covenant with God and Christ, and you're going to bury the old man and be raised to do this of life, to surrender, to submit, and serve God. And that state of mind needs to be present, obviously, at Passover as well. In Romans 6 and verse 6, knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him. Of course, it's symbolic language. You're under the water at baptism. And if you stay under the water, you're going to die. And that is the challenge, to keep that old man under the water. Knowing this, our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, and henceforth, we should not serve sin. Now continuing in verse 12, Let not sin, therefore reign in your mortal body, that we should obey it in the less thereof. Neither ye are your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin. See, Paul has done all this talking in chapters 3 and 4 and 5 about faith and grace. And then he talks about, don't be a sinner. Don't be a sinner after you're baptized. And if all that was necessary is belief in Jesus Christ and his righteousness being imputed to you axiomatically, why even talk about this? It would be redundant or whatever word you want to use. Let not sin, therefore reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in the less thereof. Neither yield your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin. But ye are yourselves unto God as those that are alive from the dead. So you come up out of that watery grave, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under the law, but under grace. And by that, not under the law, that the penalty that the law inflicted upon you of sin and death has been removed. But what are you going to do? Are you going to remain in your sins and serve sin, or are you going to serve God? What shall we say then? Shall we sin? Because we're not under the law, that penalty has been removed, but under grace, God forbid, no you not, that to whom you yield yourselves servants you obey, His servants you are, to whom you obey, whether to sin of the death or of obedience unto righteousness. Surrender. Here I am. Anything I get above death is a gift. I'm willing to submit to you, and I'm willing to serve you. Here I am. I become then. I'm supposed to become. You and I like the innocent lamb. So let's examine now the specific instructions Paul gave for taking the Passover in 1 Corinthians 11. These are the most extensive, complete, specific instructions with regard to the New Covenant Passover in the Bible. Very important to understand. 1 Corinthians 11, verse 17.

Now, in this that I declare unto you, I praise you not. So there was a problem in Corinth. Corinth had, of course, many, many problems. They range from meat offered to idols to saying there was no resurrection to difficulties with divorce and remarriage. It just covered the whole spectrum. He says, I praise you not that you come together not for the better, but for the worse. It should be for the better to keep Passover. For first of all, when you come together in the church, I hear that there be divisions among you, and I partly believe it. For there must be also heresies or divisions among you, that they which are approved may be made manifest among you. Back several months ago, standing right here, I said after a video from the home office, I said, this trial that the church is now undergoing is not just a ministry. It is on everybody, everywhere, and a lot of people don't discern or recognize the test when they come. A lot of people are doing what they're doing today because of hearsay. And remember, I read that little poem here about hearsay. Because somebody else said that somebody else said that somebody said that somebody did this. I'm out of here. I'm not going to pursue that. But Paul says that they which are approved may be made manifest among you. Sometimes you just wonder, well, you could go back to the time of Satan's rebellion. God obviously knew what Satan was doing when he began to work on the angels, and eventually drew a third part of them into his camp. He knew what Satan was doing. Did he have power to step in and to stop it? Of course he did. He created them.

Does God create anything greater than he can control? If he's all-powerful, then I submit to you that he does not create anything greater than he can control. That would be contradiction within itself. There are many divisions and many tests and trials that come upon God's people that God could step in and stop. But God wants to know, and he will know, what is our heart and where do we really stand when it comes to our faith, loyalty, allegiance, obedience to him?

Verse 20, when you come together, therefore, into one place, this is not to eat the Lord's Supper. And some of those in worldwide began to call it the Lord's Supper. And he says clearly, it is not to eat the Lord's Supper. And where did that phrase, the Lord's Supper, come from?

Well, it was a custom among some of the Greeks and various ethnic groups that when they would come together, they would have a social meal before they got down to whatever business it was that they were there to conduct. So they were having, like, love feasts or whatever you want to call them, they're in Corinth before they observed Passover. Paul says that it's not to purpose. We're not here to have a meal. For in eating everyone takes before other his own supper, they were having like a, it wasn't really a potluck, it was everybody bring their own food and then we'll have a meal.

And one is hungry and another is drunk. So they weren't sharing it. They weren't putting it all out on the table and everybody shared it in common. It's like those who have plenty, they fared sumptuously and plentiful. Those who didn't have it much didn't. What have you not houses to eat in, to drink in, or despise you, the church of God? And the church of God is comprised of those who have His Spirit.

Do you despise the rest of the members of the body of Christ? That's one aspect of discerning the Lord's body. And shame them that have not, what shall I say to you, shall I praise you in this, I praise you not. For I have received of the Lord that which also had delivered unto you, that the Lord Jesus the same night in which He was betrayed took bread. And when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, Take eat, this is my body which is broken for you, this due in remembrance of me.

Due in remembrance of me. Remember that Christ paid the price for our sin through His sacrifice. So here we get into the aspect of discerning His physical body and the sacrifice He made to buy us back, to redeem us. For you do show, the Greek word katagelō means to announce, to declare, to make known the Lord's death.

Katakagelō is for show. You announce, you declare the Lord's death. So you have to recognize that Jesus Christ died for our sins. In verse 25, after the same manner also, He took the cup when He had set saying, This cup is the new diathice, the new covenant. Testament is a wrong translation. The new covenant in my blood, this due you as off as you drink of it in remembrance of me. For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you do show the Lord's death till He come.

So you have to discern that Jesus Christ died for your sins. Due it in remembrance of me, showing what I've done for you. Now, it begins now further instruction of the attitude and kind of mind. Necessary, wherefore, whosoever shall eat of this bread and drink of this cup of the Lord unworthily.

Now that word unworthily, you have to come to understand. It is anaxios, A-N-A-X-I-O-U-S. Write it in your brain if you don't have pen and paper to write it. A-N-A-X-I-O-U-S. Anaxios means irreverently. You know, for years in the Church of God, and it still happens to some degree, people will labor over, Oh, I'm not worthy to take the Lord's Passover.

You know, this past year has been a bad year, and I have done this and I've done that. Well, right now we've got six and a half weeks to prepare. I guess you could prepare rather quickly, but God doesn't view putting things off very favorably. None of us are worthy. None of us are worthy, as we think of worthy in the English language today, that I'm just worthy to take the Passover.

What Paul is talking about is what he introduced in the first. They were having this meal, and they were eating and drinking, and some were actually getting drunk. That's irreverent behavior. That is not discerning the body of Christ and His Holiness and what He did to pay for our sins, and it is not discerning the Church, the other members of the body that are there either.

You're causing division. So he says, Whosoever shall eat this bread and drink this cup of the Lord irreverently, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. In other words, you'll be... it's like killing Him all over again. But let a man examine himself. Let a man examine himself. As we've already mentioned from the context above, they were taking it irreverently. And there are different ways that you can take it irreverently. It's not just that you have a meal and get drunk before Passover.

So continuing in verse 28, let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread and drink of that cup. For he that eats and drinks unworthily, irreverently, eats and drinks judgment to himself, not discerning the Lord's body. And the Lord's body has the aspect of His physical body that He gave for us, and the other members of the body of Christ who have His Spirit.

Know you not that you are the temple of God, that you are the body of Christ. So you can't just do any old way to them and say, Well, you know, I'm taking the Passover irreverently. So when you eat and drink of the Passover, do it in remembrance of the death of our Savior. And to eat and drink without showing regard and understanding of the solemn significance of this event is to be guilty of the blood of the Lord. Now, this verse 28 that we read, examine yourself.

Doximizo means to prove, to scrutinize, to see whether a thing is genuine or not. And if you don't do that, you drink judgment. King James says damnation, the word is judgment, to himself, not discerning the body of Christ. Now, this word discerning in verse 29 is very important. The word discerning here is diacrino, D-I-A. What does DIA mean in Greek? You talk about the diameter of a circle. DIA means all the way through, all the way through, thorough.

The measurement all the way through of a circle is the diameter of the circle. To discern the body of Christ, diacrino means to thoroughly discern, all aspects. The physical body of Christ, the spiritual body, that is, each member of the body of Christ.

And the Corinthians were not doing either, really, because they were eating and drinking irreverently. And if you don't do it, as it says here in this verse, you eat and drink judgment to yourself. So if we fail to reconcile with God and brother and judge ourselves, you know what will happen? If we don't judge ourselves, God will judge us. He will chase in us and He'll bring us into judgment. I made a statement here in the sermon, I don't know if it was last week or whatever it was exactly, that once you come into the knowledge of God's marvelous light and truth, He's not going to let you go. You're either going to choose life or death. And obviously, when all is said and done, there are only two broad choices for all of humankind, life and death. For us, life and death judgment is right now. For the rest of the world, it may come later. They're not called in this age. Now, notice this verse 30, For this cause, what cause? For eating and drinking irreverently, for this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and some are dead. Many sleep, meaning dead. For if we would judge ourselves, see, if we would exercise that judgment, mercy and faith, come before God and say, I have sinned, and be reconciled to God, or go to your brother and say, we have had this disagreement, let's get it straight. I recently had someone come to me at the conference in Cincinnati and talk about being reconciled. And so we were. And there's nothing like it. It yields the peaceable fruits of righteousness. And it is one of the requirements for taking the Passover irreverently. And if you want to use the English word, worthily, but not worthily in the sense that we think of, oh, I'm worthy because of my whatever. For if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged. Verse 32. But when we are judged, we are chastened, and I've talked about, of the Lord that we should not be judged with the world. God is bringing us into judgment now, and we're standing before the judgment seat of Christ. Wherefore, my brethren, when you come together, when you come together to eat tarry one for another, and if any man hunger, let him eat at home, that you come not together unto judgment, and the rest, well, I said, in order, when I come. So, obviously, the body of Christ must be discerned and recognized. It is through the sacrifice of Christ that our sins can be remitted, and that body of fellow Christians, our brothers and sisters, it has to be discerned as well, and we have to be reconciled to one another. Notice now in 1 Corinthians, I mentioned this verse earlier, back a page or so, 1 Corinthians 10-15. Because here's what we are affirming when we take that Passover. When they pass that tray around, and you take that piece of bread, and you put it in your mouth, and you chew it and swallow it, what do you say? When you drink that cup, what are you saying with regard to the body of Christ, that is, fellow believers? Here's what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 10-15.

I speak as a wise man, judge you what I say. The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? It's like becoming one with Him. Not like the Catholics teach of transubstantiation, that it literally becomes His blood and flesh, but symbolically, we are in communion with Him. The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? For we, being many, are one bread and one body, and we are all partakers of that one bread. We are all partakers of the life of Jesus Christ and the Spirit of God, that is, in Christ, is in us. And when we eat that bread, we are saying that we are in unity with God and Christ, and each member of the body of Christ.

Now, of course, the other aspect is how are we going to live our daily lives?

Are we going to live our lives with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth? Turn back a few pages now to 1 Corinthians 5, 1 Corinthians 5.

1 Corinthians has a Feast of Unleavened Bread theme in it. It talks about the Passover, talks about unleavened bread.

In 1 Corinthians 5, they had among them an incestuous fornicator that they had not put out of the church. And Paul makes the statement that a little leavened leavens the whole lump. They were like glorying in it. Well, he's sinning, doesn't bother me. It's his business.

Instead of confronting it, and he takes them to task, and he orders them to put this person out of the church so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord. In 2 Corinthians, he talks about receiving this one back.

Verse 7, purge out therefore the old leaven, and he's talking about the sin leaven, in this case, not the physical leaven, but that is included here in a moment. Purge out therefore the old leaven that you may be a new lump as you are unleavened. They were unleavened physically. Oh, it's easy to go put out all the bread and the crumbs and all that. Then we just glory in our righteousness. We should do that, but the other must not be left undone. As you are unleavened. It sounds like a contradiction, but purge out therefore the old leaven, the spiritual leavening, that you may be a new lump as you are unleavened.

For even Christ our Passover sacrificed for us. Therefore, let us keep the feast, not with the old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. Now, if you would go to John 1, John 1, Jesus Christ is the living Word. We see this here in chapter 1 of John. John 1, verse 1, In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, and the Word was with God.

Now, some people just talk about this being a metaphor or a thought of God, but you don't make a metaphor or thought of God into verse 14. And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory. The glory is the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. Jesus Christ lived in eternity as the Word of God until He was sent to this earth as Jesus Christ. And in John 6, we see that Jesus Christ is the bread of life. Paul said, let us keep the feast with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

In John 6, verse 30, They said therefore unto him, What sign show you that you are the one that we should believe, and what work do you do? Our Father did eat manna in the desert, as it is written, He gave them bread from heaven to eat. Then Jesus said unto them, Verily there I say unto you, Moses gave you not that bread from heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven, for the bread of God is he which comes down from heaven and gives life unto the world.

Then said they unto him, Lord, for evermore give us this bread. And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life. He that comes to me shall never hunger, and he that believes in me shall never thirst. So we are to keep a Passover with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth in the days of unleavened bread. We are to eat and drink of that. We had Matthew 4, 4 quoted in the sermonette, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.

And when you ingest the bread and wine, it is symbolic of his death and showing his death until he comes. But at the same time, he is the bread of life. Later in this chapter, he talks about eating and drinking. Drink my, eat my flesh and drink my blood. Let's read that in verse 52. The Jews strove among themselves, saying, How can this man give his flesh to eat? Then Jesus said unto them, Verily I say unto you, Except you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.

So the bread represents that body of Christ given for us. Whoso eats my flesh and drinks my blood shall have eternal life, and I will give him or raise him up the last day, for my flesh is meat and deed, and my blood is drink and deed. He that eats my flesh and drinks my blood, drink, dwells in me and I in him, and the living Father that has sent me, and I live by the Father. So he that eats me, even he shall live by me. How do you do that? It is by eating and drinking of the Word of God.

And you come down to this verse 63 that I quote nearly every sermon. It is the Spirit that quickens, the flesh profits nothing, the words that I speak. They are spirit and they are truth. They are life.

So, brethren, if we look at what we have said today, we have talked about how sin entered into the universe through Satan. How that sin entered into humankind through Adam, and that all of us have sinned and come short of the glory of God. The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life. We talked about how obedience is inextricably linked to faith. We've talked about the weightier matters of the law.

We have talked about being delivered from sin and death, and that God instituted the Passover with Israel in Exodus 12. They went through physical actions to a large degree to be free physically, but it had great spiritual significance and symbolism behind it. We have talked about how these things have now been fulfilled in the New Testament, in the New Covenant.

We talked about how in order to keep the Passover correctly, we have to be reconciled to God, reconciled to one another. We have to discern the body of Christ, the physical body that He gave. We have to discern one another. We must not take the Passover irreverently, disrespecting one another. We've talked about eating and drinking of the bread of life, keeping the feast with the 11 bread of sincerity and truth. So, brethren, I hope you will review these things, and you will begin your examination, and you're looking into this great spiritual mirror, the Word of God, so that you will be ready to take the Passover in just a few weeks from now.