Sermon Tone Analysis

Intro

Last week, as part of a two part sermon, we began looking at “Christ our Passover” as pertaining to the Lord’s Supper.

Lord willing, I would like to continue that message today and focus our hearts and minds upon this blessed topic— especially in light of our taking of the Lord’s Supper today.

The verse from which this message is based is, 1 Corinthians 5:7, which in part reads:

1 Corinthians 5:7b (AV)

For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us

As we began last week to see, the passover in the Old Testament is an important part of God’s redemptive history.

It was crucial in the revelation of God’s redeeming plan for his chosen people.

All aspects of the passover pointed forward to the sacrifice our of Lord Jesus Christ and the shedding of his blood that would occur on the cross at Calvary.

The old passover was a dimly lit revelation of the Gospel that would be fully brought to light by the Triune God in the New Covenant.

If you would, please, turn to Exodus chapter 12, staring in verse 1.

look down to verse 22

Recap

In the last message, as we looked through this passage, I used some of Benjamin Keach’s book Tropologia: A Key to Open Scripture Metaphors on the types and shadows in the Scriptures.

He had some great points laid out concerning the parallels that describe the types and antitypes of the passover as given in Exodus.

As we continue looking at the passover in Exodus, I will be referencing some of his points— I think the order of things that he looks at in the Exodus passage is laid out in a good order to draw out Christ as our passover.

We have already looked at 13 things that are found in the Passover which pointed forward to Jesus Christ.

The last thing we saw was that there was a making ready, a preparing for the meal.

I hope that the Lord has been preparing us all for the blessed ordinance that we will be partaking of today, and let it be our desire that God will have us ready and acceptable to partake of the bread and the wine representing the body and blood of our Lord Jesus.

The Next four points that we are going to look at are based upon Exodus 12:11 , which reads:

14.

The Israelites were to eat the passover with their loins girded.

Keach said, “This signifies the girding the loins of our minds with justice, strength, and verity.”

Benjamin Keach, Tropologia: A Key to Open Scripture Metaphors (London: William Hill Collingridge, 1856), 640.

I take that as meaning the justice of God towards sin and the will to follow him.

Verity meaning truth.

As part of the preparation they were to have their lions girded, and this was something that they were to maintain throughout the entire passover.

To gird requires one to lift the bottom of their tunic to the thigh, and then tie it up using the tunic itself.

The tunic is girded up, wrapped around the waist to prepare for action.

In the case of the Israelites, they were to be prepared for when the Lord set them free from the bondage of Egypt— ready to flee that evil land, ready to be obedient to God’s commands.

If you recall, in Ephesians chapter 6, concerning the Armor of God, we are instructed to have our “loins girt about with truth.”

Paul said in,

Ephesians 1:13 (AV)

In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise,

The truth is the Gospel, which is the doctrine of the Covenant of Grace, and with that we gird ourselves— we pull it in close to us, clothing ourselves in it, embracing it.

We tie it tight about ourselves to prepare for everyday life.

And as we prepare for the Lord’s Supper, we gird up our hearts, minds, and souls with the Gospel of our salvation.

We remember how we have been redeemed and set free from the bondage of sin and the punish due it.

15.

Exodus 12:11, tells us that they were to have their shoes on.

They were to be ready for action, ready for God to do something.

I can’t help buy think about the Armor of God here again from:

This means that we are to have a solid knowledge and understanding of the Gospel— which is the foundation of our faith.

As your feet plant you firmly upon the ground, so does our faith firmly plant us in the Gospel.

Christ is our solid rock, he is the sure and absolute foundation in which we stand, in which our faith is built.

We must be always at the ready, having our feet firmly planted, by faith in Jesus Christ and his Gospel of Peace.

That preparation though, also requires us to be diligent in exercising our Christian duties, living a life of godliness and holiness that reflects the grace of God in the believer.

Daily, and most especially upon receiving the ordinances, we must know with certainty that glorious Gospel that saved undeserving wretches such as us.

16.

Also in the Exodus passage, verse 11, on the passover, God told them to have their staff in their hand.

Having a staff in hand symbolizes that one is about to go on the move, going forth from the place at which they current stand.

Having read some of John Bunyan earlier in the week my mind went to think about Pilgrims Progress, and about Pilgrim carrying a staff.

A staff has often been used symbolically of a pilgrim on a journey.

Peter said in 1 Peter 2:11

John Gill wrote of that verse,

quote

An Exposition of the New Testament, Volumes I–III (Chapter 2)

… pilgrims; whose habit is Christ and his righteousness; whose food is Christ and his fulness; whose staff is Christ and the promises; whose guide is the blessed Spirit; the place for which they are bound is heaven, the better country, where is their father’s house, their friends, and their inheritance; this world not being their country, nor their resting-place, it became them to have their conversation in heaven

end quote

We are pilgrims in this land and upon our journey we lean upon our staff, which is Christ and all of the promises of the blessed Covenant of Grace— from them we get our strength.

17.

Next in verse 11, they were instructed to eat in haste.

Normally, folks sit down and relax at a meal.

When you think upon the scene of the Lord’s last supper, they were without shoes, nor did they have staff’s in hand.

They were reclined around the table.

The instructions by God in Exodus were specific for the Israelites whom he was about to lead out of bondage in a magnificent way.

They were to eat in haste, quickly, being prepared to depart upon the Lord’s call.

Robert Hawker wrote:

The state of departure here described becomes a beautiful figure of a soul when receiving Jesus, in turning his back upon the world and every thing in it,

And, I add, that a state of readiness should exist in the believer to carry out his Christian duties and service to God.

Furthermore, every believer should be anxiously awaiting our Lord’s return— not at ease, but at the ready to meet our Lord face to face— whether at his glorious return or when he calls us home to himself.

Exodus 12:11 ends with God saying “it is the LORD’s Passover”.

All of this preparation, all of the instruction given, all of it was for the LORD’s Passover.

God continues in verse 12,

Verse 13, Exodus 12.13

That brings us to our last point from Exodus 12,

18.

The blood of the lamb was shed.

Look down at Exodus 12:21,

That spotless lamb that had been chosen was slain.

He was sacrificed for the salvation of the Israelites from the bondage of the Egyptians.

This was not a careless sacrifice.

The sacrificing of the lamb, including the collection and application of his blood, was a deliberate act and done with the utmost attention and care.

Charles Spurgeon once preached,

Spurgeon’s Sermons: Volume 33 (THE BLOOD OF SPRINKLING AND THE CHILDREN.)

The Spirit of God in the passover ceremonial lays special emphasis upon the sprinkling of the blood.

That which men so greatly oppose, he as diligently sets forth as the head and front of revelation.

The blood of the chosen lamb was caught in a basin, and not spilled upon the ground in wastefulness; for the blood of Christ is most precious.

Into this bowl of blood a bunch of hyssop was dipped.

The sprays of that little shrub would hold the crimson drops, so that they could be easily sprinkled.

Then the father of the family went outside, and struck with this hyssop the lintel and the two side posts of the door, and so the house was marked with three crimson streaks.

No blood was put upon the threshold.

Woe unto the man that tramples upon the blood of Christ, and treats it as an unholy thing!

The blood of that passover lamb was set apart, it was sanctified by God for use as a covering.

With that blood covering, he could look upon his people with acceptance, passing-over them— sparing them from his judgement and wrath.

This was all a type that was a demonstration of what God would do with his Son-- the perfect, spotless, sinless, Lamb of God.

In his death, Jesus Christ would take the wrath of God that we deserve.

His death was an atonement of our sins, and by the shedding of his blood he redeemed us as a people to himself.

The blood of Jesus Christ covers the elect, sparing them from God’s judgement and making them acceptable before God.

That first passover was made with imperfect and sinful men— sacrificing a lamb that had no sinlessness or perfection in itself that could take away sin and the judgement it deserves.

But Christ, was a perfect,Great High Priest who offered up himself as a perfect sacrifice.

Like those men of old, there is nothing that we can offer God, nothing that we can sacrifice, nothing that can earn us favor or merit with God— there is nothing in or of ourselves that will cause God to passover us in his wrath and judgement against sin— nothing, but the shed-blood of Jesus Christ, can satisfy the wrath of God that our sin deserves.

The lamb of the old passover perished.

Everything must have been eaten before the morning, and what was not, was burned so that nothing remained.

But praise God!