00:00
00:00
00:01
Transcript
1/0
Well, we're back in Joshua. I'm
going to be reading Joshua 5, verses 10 through 12. And while
I read this, I just want you to be aware, for many of these
Israelites, this is the first time they have been able to partake
of the Passover in 38 years. This must have been an incredible
time of joy as they were readmitted to this feast. I just can't imagine
being barred from the Lord's table for 38 years. But in any
case, let's read this together. Joshua 5, beginning at verse
10. Now the children of Israel camped in Gilgal and kept the
Passover on the 14th day of the month at twilight on the plains
of Jericho, and they ate of the produce of the land on the day
after the Passover on leavened bread and parched grain on the
very same day. Then the manna ceased on the
day after they had eaten the produce of the land, and the
children of Israel no longer had manna, but they ate the food
of the land of Canaan that year. Amen. Father, we thank you for
your Word, and I pray that as we dig into this, that you would
open our eyes to see the glories of what you have provided for
us, the promise that we have in the Lord's table. And we pray
this blessing upon your people through the grace and through
the merits of Jesus Christ. Amen. Well, before we dive into
this passage, I want to at least briefly explain the relationship
between circumcision and Passover in the Old Testament and baptism
and the Lord's Table in the New Testament. The New Testament
is quite clear that those Old Testament sacraments really are
related very, very closely. They correspond to our two sacraments.
Now, the last time I was preaching on this chapter, I was focused
in on circumcision, showed how it paralleled New Covenant baptism
on many ways. And today we're going to be looking
at the second sacrament of the Old Testament, communion. Now,
I will say that communion came in a number of different forms
depending on the time of year that it was. There were weekly
communion meals at the tabernacle as they would come to offer peace
offerings and then they spoke of the fellowship meals that
were afterwards. It was a kind of communion. And then there
were yearly festivals where the communion meal was celebrated
at those festivals as well, but the mother of all of these communion
meals was Passover. All of the other communion meals
float out of that, and theologians give a number of different scriptures
to show that. You know, Jesus spoke of the
Lord's table in the language of the Passover. So did the Apostle
Paul. Now obviously, the bloody aspects of Passover
passed away with the sacrifice of Christ, and so all that we're
left with is the unleavened bread and the wine, and it's the same
with circumcision. The bloody aspect that pointed
to Jesus that was associated with the circumcision washing
ceremony that they went through, that passed away, and the only
thing that's left in the new covenant is the washing, the
baptism. But the essence of both sacraments
continues into the New Testament. But back to the Passover, 1 Corinthians
5, 7 through 8 says we continue to eat the Passover feast when
we partake of the Lord's Table. And sometime read 1 Corinthians
10. It goes through all of the Old Testament communion meals
and says that the essence of those meals is found in the Lord's
Table. In fact, in that passage it goes
through and it says that we can learn how to worthily partake
of the Lord's Table by looking at how people either unworthily
or worthily partook of the table in the Old Testament, okay? So
that's what we're gonna do with the Passover today. Now, obviously,
it doesn't say everything that could be said about Passover
observation. It's just an introduction, but
we're gonna find, I think, this introduction to be helpful. So
first of all, there were conditions for partaking of the Passover
meal. A stranger couldn't just walk
up and start partaking without demonstrating to the Levites,
who were the pastors in those days, that he met these conditions. My book on communion shows all
of the different conditions that God gave. We're just gonna stick
to the ones that are hinted at in verses two through nine. First
of all, they got circumcised in verses two through nine. And
it's not by accident that they had to get circumcised before
they partook of the Passover. This was mandated in the law
of God. No uncircumcised person could
partake of Passover or any of the other communion meals. And
you think about that, that means that these people Their whole
lifetime, they have not been partaking of communion for many,
many years, 38 to be precise for many of those people. Obviously,
there were some youngsters or younger ones that were present
here. But Exodus 12 verse 48 says, no uncircumcised person
shall eat it. Numbers 9 and other passages
indicate that there was a ritual cleansing that was also needed,
what we call a baptism. It was an absolute rule. That
was required before they partook. But second, we saw that there
were a number of things that had to be in place before people
could get circumcised. Well, if circumcision is a condition
of Passover, and there is other conditions for circumcision,
then these are preconditions for coming to the Lord's table
as well. They had to repent of their sins.
They had to put their faith in the coming Messiah. And this
is why Romans 4, verse 11 speaks of the circumcision of Abraham
as being a sign and a seal of the justification by faith that
he had in the coming Christ. God had revealed to them, this
is symbolizing what your future Messiah will go through. And
because the covenant was made with not just believers, but
also with their children, circumcision was applied to their children
as well. Third, we saw that, circumcision had
to be done under the authority of Levites, who were the pastors.
Fourth, it was normally supposed to be done in a public ceremony. It was not to be a private event,
and that's why the circumcision in verses 2 through 9 was public.
I know it would have been embarrassing, but it was a public event that
they went through. So last time we saw that all
of this believing generation had just gotten circumcised by
the pastors, the Levites, as a sign of their justification
by faith alone, and Their children, their male children, were circumcised
along with them. So I'm not gonna repeat what
we went through on that sermon, and I'm not gonna get into the
baptism side of things other than just to remind you that
while all the males were circumcised, both the males and the females
also were baptized, and that baptism was called a circumcision. If you wanna read it, Numbers
9, there's some passages in Leviticus that get into that. Well, in
the same way, before anyone can partake of communion in the New
Testament, he has to be baptized with water by an ordained minister
of the gospel in a public ceremony. And we're willing to re-baptize
people who did not have that happen to them. But let me talk
a little bit more about the second prerequisite, that if there was
church discipline, then the church discipline had to be reversed
before people could come to communion. Now in verses 4 through 6, he
gives just a brief rehearsal of what numbers in Deuteronomy
go into great detail on, and that was that many years before, the adults
had rebelled against God over and over and over again until
finally God in His, I mean, He was very patient with them, but
eventually He excommunicated them, basically, and because
they were no longer members of the synagogues, they were not
allowed to circumcise their children, because it's a sign of the covenant,
and they did not have the privilege of the sacraments. So they were
part of the nation. This is something many people
get confused on. You could be a part of the nation
without being circumcised, but you could not be a part of the
church, okay? So they were part of the nation.
but they were not members of the church. Now you might think
that it's just not fair to allow the children to suffer for the
sins of the parents and the neglect of the parents. This is the way
God's covenant many times works. And so as those children became
adults, many of them, and in this case, God moved upon their
hearts, all of them made profession of faith. And God can do that.
He brought the entire city of Nineveh to faith. And Jesus said
it was a genuine faith. It was not just a formality that
they went through. So they came to faith. Now I
did mention that there was a believing remnant throughout that entire
40-year period who did have faith in God and who did come to the
communion meals throughout that whole period of time, but the
bulk of Israel did not. And so this ceremony was a reversal
of that discipline. And the application that I make
to this is that God guards his table very jealously, and he
expects his ministers to guard it jealously as well, okay? We ask visitors to wait if they
have not been baptized by a minister, if they have not made membership
vows, you know, joined some evangelical church. Some people complain
about waiting, but hey, these guys were made to wait for 38
years. Now, of course, other passages
indicate that discipline couldn't be reversed without repentance.
That's pretty obvious, right? These people were already believers,
but there had been compromise in their lives, and you can see
that hinted at in verse 9. It's very clear in Exodus, Numbers,
and Deuteronomy. But if you take a look at verse
9, it says, Lord said to Joshua, this day I have rolled away the
reproach of Egypt from you. They had been acting more like
Egypt than like God's people, and they repented of that. Now,
40 years before, they had left Egypt, but Egypt had not left
them. And it was just now on this day that the reproach of
Egypt was completely eliminated. This is an amazing statement.
It didn't matter that they were believers. The reproach of Egypt
was still clinging to them. It didn't matter that they had
previously won some battles. By failing to be circumcised,
they were still identifying with the world. And so before taking
the conquest of Canaan, God wanted them to have a radical renunciation
of the world and a commitment to his ways of doing things.
Were they God's people? Yes. Were they prepared for the
conflict? No. God wanted to make it unmistakably
clear they were committed to Him until death, and so He reinstituted
this very painful rite of circumcision, a painful operation to demonstrate
their radical commitment to Him. Now, don't worry, we don't require
circumcision. That's passed away in the New
Testament, right? But we do require baptism. Next, by partaking of
the Passover, they were renewing their vows of loyalty and devotion
to God. Okay, so fellowship and worship
are things that Satan fears. This fellowship, this restoration
of fellowship with each other and of worship to God, God wanted
in their lives before they took the conquest. Verse 10 says,
So the children of Israel camped in Gilgal and kept the Passover
on the 14th day of the month at twilight on the plains of
Jericho. This was a feast that highlighted
both their walk with God and their walk with each other. both
worship and fellowship. If Satan can break either of
those in our lives, he has made major inroads into your life,
okay? And this has happened with many
of these Israelites over and over during the previous 40 years.
Many years earlier, when King Balak hired Balaam, and he wasn't
able to curse them, he blessed them instead, he finally asked
Balaam, so how do I get at these people? And Balaam gave him advice. And he said, if you can get them
to fornicate and or to marry with unbelievers, they're going
to lose God's favor. And then if you can get them
to worship other idols. And so, you know, breaking fellowship
on a horizontal level and breaking the power of worship through
idolatry was something that enabled Satan to gain a foothold in their
lives. If you read 1 John, you will
see how critical it is that we maintain fellowship, that we
maintain our worship with God on a regular basis. And so these
Israelites were bound to the Lord and they're bound to each
other through these two sacraments. But this Passover meal also ties
the entire conquest of the rest of the book to the future redemption
of Jesus. And let me quickly explain what
is meant by this lamb. Exodus 12 through 13 gives God's
instructions on the Passover meal and requires that these
instructions be passed on from generation to generation. So
we can assume that the Levites, before they approved, because
they had to inspect the lamb, before they approved the meal
that they're gonna partake of, they're gonna explain what the
law said they had to explain. They explain the meaning. Now
I've included a chart on the back of your outlines that gives
20 ways in which Passover perfectly prefigured Jesus. I'm just gonna
highlight four or five of those so you can get an idea of it.
Point number one there shows that the Lamb itself represents
Jesus, the Lamb of God slain for us. A verse I didn't include
is 1 Corinthians 5, 7. It says, Christ, our Passover,
was sacrificed for us. So Jesus is called the Passover
Lamb. Point two gives the requirement that the Lamb be without any
blemish. And I give a couple verses, and I give two New Testament
verses that show that this pointed, that symbol pointed to the sinlessness
of Jesus. Point four shows the Lamb set
apart four days before Passover and brought for inspection by
the Levites, had to be inspected by the pastors, and interestingly,
On the very day that thousands of lambs are being herded through
the streets of Jerusalem toward the temple to be inspected by
the Levites, Jesus is going toward the temple in the midst of those
lambs. He's going as the Lamb of God. Point five shows that the lamb
was slain on exactly the same day Jesus was crucified on. And
I won't take the time to go through all 20 points of comparison,
but when you see how Passover was a sign and seal of Christ's
redemption, you see how this was a perfect preparation for
them going into the land of Canaan. Joshua himself was a type of
Jesus advancing the gospel, but you don't have any gospel if
there's no redemption. You know, liberals like to take
the blood out. They say, that's gross, that's gory. No, you do
not have any redemption without the slain blood of Jesus. So
by partaking of this sacrament, these believing Israelites were
acknowledging they could not take the conquest apart from
Christ and his work. Now, he was still future to them,
but they're looking in faith to him. Now, there's also some
interesting stuff here related to timing. Since Joshua is a
type of Christ, it should not surprise us that even his chronology
parallels Christ's chronology in many ways. Let me give you
several timing examples. In chapter 1, Joshua was commissioned
to his new ministry in Canaan, which was different than in the
wilderness. commissioned on New Year's Day. Abib 1 is New Year's
Day. And actually, after the exile,
Abib got changed as a name to Nisan. But Abib 1, Nisan 1, is
a very significant date. For example, Michael Rood calculated
that Abib 1 was when Jesus emerged from the desert, you know, his
temptation to begin his public ministry. And on that day, John
the Baptist announces him to everybody, behold the Lamb of
God who takes away the sin of the world. So it shouldn't be
any surprise to us that there's other symbols related to this
ministry. For example, the tabernacle was set up on Abib 1, Nisan 1. It opened its doors for ministry
on that day because it too is a symbol of the Lord Jesus. But
the key point here is that both Joshua and Jesus were commissioned
to ministry on New Year's Day. Chapter 4, verse 19 says that
Israel crossed the Jordan River on Abib 10. Well, that's the
date of Christ's triumphal entry into Jerusalem. In obedience
to Exodus 12, verse 10 of our chapter says they kept the Passover
on the 14th day of Abib. That's when Jesus, our Passover
lamb, was crucified. But verse 11 says, they ate the
produce of the land of Canaan the next day, eating unleavened
bread and parched grain on the very same day. Well, that's almost
a direct quote from Leviticus, and most commentaries point to
this. Leviticus 23, verse 14. Now let me quote that verse,
because I think it's key to understanding this passage. And I'm going to
quote it in context, because it gives instructions of what
they should do when they entered into the land of Canaan, which
is now, right? It says this. This is Leviticus 23, beginning
at verse 10. Speak to the children of Israel
and say to them, when you come into the land which I give to
you and reap its harvest, which is what they did here, Then you
shall bring a sheaf of the firstfruits of your harvest to the priest.
He shall wave the sheaf before the Lord to be accepted on your
behalf. On the day after the Sabbath, the priest shall wave
it, and you shall offer on that day when you wave the sheaf,
a male lamb of the first year without blemish as a burnt offering
to the Lord. Its grain offering shall be two-tenths
of an ephah of fine flour mixed with oil, an offering made by
fire to the Lord for a sweet aroma, and its drink offering
shall be of wine, one-fourth of a hen. You shall eat neither
bread nor parched grain, nor fresh grain, until the same day
that you have brought an offering to your God, it shall be a statute
forever throughout your generations in all your dwellings." Now,
there have been a number of commentaries that are really confused, because
it seems like Joshua is disobeying this. It was actually the early
Jewish Karaite commentaries who were the first to calculate and
recognize, and now Protestants followed them, but they recognized
that the only way that Joshua 5 can be reconciled with these
instructions here is if the Passover for that year landed on a Sabbath. That hint not only gives us a
very precise chronology in these chapters, but it also shows how
Israel was carefully following God's law to a T. And so we've
got Passover immediately followed by the wave offering, followed
by their eating grain from the land on the 15th. Now, if the
last section of this chapter follows immediately after the
15th, then this theophany, in the last verses, 13 through 15,
this theophany that meets with Joshua happened on the 16th,
on Resurrection Day. Now, we can't be absolutely sure
of that, but it would then prefigure Christ's resurrection power rather
well. Now there are three additional
things we can learn from the beautiful timing. I love chronology,
I'm sorry that I inflict you with chronology, but I love it.
But the fact that four, if you trace through all of the chronology
in the first six chapters, there's four sabbatic structures, there's
four cycles of seven, and even the marching seven times around
Jericho. We won't get into that. The four sabbatic structures
symbolize the fact that Jesus is our rest. We must first rest
in him before we take our dominion work. After all, he gives us
the strength to take dominion. Second, all of this shows that
they were committed to obeying God's laws to the tiniest details. If God said it, they're gonna
obey it. God blesses those who are loyal to His law. Third,
doing both sacraments before rushing into the conquest shows
a huge trust in God. And let me explain. From a human
perspective, it would have been much more advantageous for them
to immediately after they have crossed this Jordan, it was spectacular,
and you know these walls, what did we say, 100 feet tall or
something like that, the walls of water with the flood by the
end of the day, it struck fear. Verse one says, it struck fear
into the hearts of the Canaanites, And it would have been much more
advantageous for Israel to take them by surprise. Nobody expected
that anybody would be crossing this river anytime soon because
it was in flood stage, right? It would have been much more
advantageous for them to take the conquest immediately, take
the advantage. So they had no time to prepare
a counteroffensive, but God does two very unusual things. Right
in front of Jericho, God has all of the men get circumcised.
Wow, this makes them sitting ducks. They're going to be sore
for a number of days, unable to fight, and yet they trust
God. They say, okay, if God says it,
we're going to do it. It says, second, God made them
wait till after the Passover, one day, and the Feast of Unleavened
Bread, which lasted another seven days. This would have given plenty
of time for the Canaanites to develop strategies of war to
do their counter offensive. It removes all the advantage
of surprise, but God wanted them to trust him. And my takeaway,
and I always try to apply these passages, my takeaway is that
devotion to God must precede service to God or our service
becomes man-centered. Rather than rushing into battle,
they worship. If you're a driven person, I
think there's quite a number of driven people in here, this
is my temptation too, I'm a driven person. If you're a driven person,
it can be so tempting to dive into your busy, busy workday
without devotions because, ah, today I just don't have time
to take devotions. No, that's backwards. You don't
have time not to take devotions. We've got to come to the Lord
for strength, even if it's a short devotion. We've got to come to
the Lord for strength if we're going to be efficient in the
dominion that God has given to us to take. Notice next. that they celebrate Passover,
it says, on the plains of Jericho. In other words, in the flat ground
that was immediately in front of that great city. You could
not get a more literal illustration of Psalm 23 verse five than this. That great Psalm says, you prepare
a table before me in the presence of my enemies. Now let's think
about that for a bit. 40 years before, to the day,
exactly 40 years before, they celebrated the first Passover
in Exodus chapter 12, and they celebrated that in the presence
of their enemies. They're still in Egypt. in the
presence of their enemies. And that first Passover meal,
Exodus 12 says, is to be a joyous thanksgiving feast that God is
about to provide judgment on Egypt and to provide delivery,
freedom from slavery. Now they celebrated the victory
before they even saw the victory. This too was a thanksgiving meal
that God was sufficient for their conquest. Now they hadn't even
started the conquest yet. had even started the conquest
yet, but they're rejoicing in God's victory. Unlike the previous
generation that was eventually barred from this meal here, these
saints did not look at Canaan as being an impossible thing
for God to take. They rejoiced that God was greater
than their greatest enemies, and they were eating this thanksgiving
meal in faith that if God was for them, who could be against
them? And many commentators point out, you know, that this shows
Joshua to be a second Moses who is leading them on a second exodus
out of the wilderness. There's a lot of things we won't
get into this morning, a lot of little lessons. But let me
talk for a bit about the blessings promised in the Passover. This
is so encouraging. Frequently, when I come to the
Lord's table, I think about these blessings. The original Passover
explicitly promised seven blessings. They're not promised in Exodus
12, they're promised in Exodus 23. And it was, after all, they're
covenanting with the Lord who owns all things, who can provide
all things, so we take these promises seriously. So let me
list the promises in Exodus 23. God promised in connection with
this meal, he promised to send his angel to protect them, verse
20. Second, God promised to protect
them from enemy attack, verses 22 through 23. Third, he promised
them success in conquest, verse 24. Fourth, he promised them
protection from sickness, verse 25. Fifth, He promised them protection
from miscarriage, verse 26. Sixth, God promised to dispossess
their enemies, implying an inheritance, verses 27 through 31. Seventh,
He explicitly promised that they would inherit the land in verses
30 through 31. Now, obviously, we don't have
those promises listed in these verses. They are promised later
on in the book of Joshua, but there are two things that we
find in these three verses that symbolically show, no, God is
good for all of His promises, And so I want to show you these
two things. First is that God provided a down payment, as it
were, by giving them their first Canaanite food totally free of
charge. They didn't even have to fight
for it. Verse 11, and they ate of the produce of the land on
the day after the Passover, unleavened bread and part grain on the very
same day. Where did they get that? They
didn't plant any grain. All they'd been eating for the
previous 40 years was manna. Well, verse 11 calls it the produce
of the land. They're getting something from
Canaan. And so commentators say what happened is the citizens
in all of the farmland that was around Jericho were frightened
when Israel came over and they dashed into Jericho, they're
holed up in Jericho, And all the Israelites have to do is
come in and start harvesting the fields. And actually some
commentators say that the Hebrew word that's used for the produce
may indicate that this has already been harvested. All they had
to go to is these big granaries, open up the chutes and start
shoveling it out for all of the Israelites to eat. This is amazing. God has provided for them a down
payment of the plunder they're going to in the future be getting. All they had to do was scoop
it out. Now, whichever way it was, whether they had to harvest
it themselves or they scooped it out of granaries, either way,
this is showing that the same pillage of the land that they're
going to be enjoying in the future They're getting a first taste
of that plunder. This is a down payment if they're inheriting
the entire land. But the next phrase in verse 11 indicates
that they were able to eat the produce of the land. It says
the day after the Passover. It was a sign he would fulfill
his promises. And they're actually gonna relax
for the next seven days because the day after Passover begins
the seven day feast of unleavened bread. And it mentions them eating
unleavened bread, right? That's on purpose. Now, I've
already showed the connection with Leviticus 23, 10 through
14 because of this quote that commentators, so it's implied
that all of those promises are implied. But when they were willing
to follow God's law, God poured out the blessings of provision
for them. And in the same way, when we come to the Lord's table,
we can come in faith rejoicing that God will indeed fulfill
his promises to us and will provide everything that we need if we
come in faith and in holiness. But moving on, since food was
now plentiful, God's supernatural provision of manna was no longer
needed. Verse 12 says, then the manna
ceased on the day after they had eaten the produce of the
land, and the children of Israel no longer had manna, but they
ate the food of the land of Canaan that year. Now, they had experienced
God's miraculous provision of manna every single day for the
last 40 years. Obviously, the Sabbaths were
excluded. But they have experienced miracle after miracle, day after
day, and yet an entire generation of unbelievers failed to appreciate
that miracle. They continually grumbled. Yet
here is a generation that has the daily miracles cease, yet
they operate from faith, operating probably their most faith-driven
generation ever. This illustrates that miracles
do not always produce faith, and faith does not need miracles
to faithfully serve God. We should not overemphasize the
importance of miracles. Now, it's not as if miracles
don't continue to happen in this book. They do, and we believe
in miracles. We've seen miracles, but we shouldn't overemphasize
it. Here's the point that I make by way of application. God will
not miraculously provide for us when our diligence can provide
what is needed. In other words, God's not interested
in subsidizing our laziness and our irresponsibility. Don't expect
miracles to cover for your laziness. A.W. Pink words it this way,
the practical lesson which we are to draw therefrom is that
we are not to expect extraordinary supplies when they can be had
in an ordinary way. God works no unnecessary miracles. It is blessed to remember that
the Lord had not discontinued the manna when the people despised
it, Numbers 11, 6, nor even when he severed his covenant relationship
with that evil generation, but had mercifully continued to give
it for the sake of their children, who had now grown up and entered
Canaan. And so he's answering a question
that comes up. Why on earth did God extend so
many miracles and so many mercies to an unbelieving generation?
And Pink, I think rightly says, he did it for the sake of the
elect who had not yet come into covenant with him. In other words,
God supplied miracles for the parents for the sake of this
generation who would come to faith. And in the same way, we
should not get frustrated with God when we pray for His judgments
to fall upon the enemies in America and He doesn't do it right away.
It may very well be that He's holding off on judgment for the
sake of some elect who are yet to come to faith. And by the
way, God did that 40 years before with, they deserve judgment,
right? 40 years before. God orchestrated in a way that
the conquest would not take place because Rahab was going to come
to faith and she hadn't even been born yet. And her family
was going to come to faith. And the whole Gibeonite tribe
was going to come to faith. Okay? So God knows what he is
doing. Later he was going to use very,
very, it would have been a mess if they had gone in 40 years
earlier. And anyway, as to his blessing these believers, when
they weren't being consistent, I'm so grateful that God deals
with his elect gently. He puts up with a lot of inconsistencies
in our lives. He doesn't just pound us, he's
very, very gracious. Now there are just two other implied lessons
that I wanna give. The first one is the need for
flexibility, and you can see that actually in most of the
chapters later on in this book. But verses 11 through 12 indicate
the need to suddenly adapt to a new diet and a new way to trust
the Lord. Now there are many of them who
had trusted the Lord, not all of them, but many of them trusted
the Lord for his miraculous provision in the wilderness. Now they're
gonna be trusting God with ordinary means of survival and prospering. God is not like Many modern churches
that refuse to kill programs even after those programs have
long outlived their usefulness. Now God calls us to change, to
be adapting, and we need to be willing to adapt. The last lesson
I see here is that God called them to memorialize the past
and to anticipate the future. We become imbalanced if we are
so present-oriented that we fail to appreciate the past and we
fail to be driven by the future. Exodus 12, 14 says of the Passover,
so this day shall be to you a memorial. They were called to memorialize
the great deeds that God had given for their deliverance from
Egypt. But the Lord's Supper was also anticipating the future.
It gave promises for their future good. Now obviously all of the
other blessings that they received flowed from their future Messiah,
who had not yet come yet, the Lord Jesus Christ. They're looking forward to that.
1 Corinthians 5, 7 says, Christ our Passover is sacrificed for
us. So we look backward, we memorialize
that. But here's the point, we should
not forget that when the Lord's table signs and seals God's redemption
to us, it signs and seals all of the blessings that flow from
that redemption. We come to the table with expectation
of more future blessings. Pink worded it this way. Passover
sets forth the grand truth of redemption, which is the foundation
blessing of believers, the fountain from which all other blessings
flow. And the Passover was kept upon
Israel's entrance into Canaan to signify that their possession
of the inheritance, no less than their deliverance from Egypt,
was owing to the merits of the blood of the Lamb. So yes, for
us, the Lord's Table is a memorial of the past. We look back, we
appreciate the past mercies, but we also look forward to His
generosity in the future. I've already read the seven blessings
listed in Exodus 23. Let me give you a few other blessings
that God promises in the Lord's Table. Exodus 12 verse 24 promises
covenant succession to many generations. And this is such an encouraging
promise to claim, especially when our children are wandering
from the faith. We ask God to be true to his
word, and we come in faith, we come with rejoicing that God
is going to do something. And we're saying, Lord, I don't
know when you're gonna do it. My wandering children, I'm laying
claim to what you're going to do. That's the way we need to
approach this subject. Some people call Abraham's laugh
the laugh of faith. And we can laugh in the face
of Satan and tell Satan, when he's trying to discourage us
and say, get out of here, I'm gonna believe God, when he has
said that my labors in the Lord are not in vain. All of the things
that I've invested in my children are not in vain. We're going
to be looking for a harvest to come no matter what Satan throws
in my face. Okay, that is resisting doubt. It's resisting by rejoicing. When you come to the Lord's table,
claim that promise. Ezra 6 connects God's cultural
blessings with the meal. In that chapter and other chapters
speaks of the fruits of grace such as joy. Do you lack joy?
Then say, Lord, one of the promises you give in the Lord's Table
is that you will fill my heart with joy, and you can claim the
other fruits of the Spirit. 2 Chronicles 30, tithes, answered
prayers, and healing to the meal. Now, of course, that passage
also, this is what people focus on. It mentions the sicknesses
that those people had because they partook of the Lord's Table
unworthily. And of course, Paul talks about
those sicknesses too, right? Many are weak, some of you are
weak, sick, some have even died as a result of coming to the
Lord's table unworthily. And so people focus on that and
they don't even wanna come to the Lord's table. But let me
tell you, brothers and sisters, yes, this is a bad news for those
who come unworthily, but it's intended to be good news. It's
the gospel, it's good news when we come in faith to this table. So when you come to the Lord's
table, and so the point is, you can claim healing. Now God's
sovereign in His distribution, in His timing, in all of this.
He can use means, He can work without means. Right now the
Lord's been doing remarkable healing in my life through means.
And I still give the credit to the Lord, even if they're placebos. I mean, God can use placebos
to heal us, right? God uses means, He can heal without
means, and the Lord's been doing some remarkable stuff in my life.
But anyway, when you come to the Lord's table, rejoice for
all that God has done in the past, and rejoice by faith in
His sufficiency for your future. Romans 8, 32 says, he who did
not spare his own son but delivered him up for us all, how shall
he not with him also freely give us all things? I love that word
freely. Freely. He's so generous. Freely give us all things. The
ordinary blessings found in the rest of this book are gifts God
gave to those who were in covenant with Him. And so I would urge
you, don't be like the previous generation of Jews who doubted
and grumbled and refused to give thanks. Commit yourselves to
rejoice by faith and to give thanks by faith when you come
to the Lord's table. Amen? Let's pray. Father, thank
you for your Word. Thank you for your promises.
Thank you for all of the pledges you gave in the Old Testament
and the New Testament. And I pray that we would have
our spirits lifted week by week as we come to the table knowing
that if you are for us, who could be against us? Help us to see
this table as a pledge that you are for us. Help us to not approach
this table with doubts, with grumbling, with lack of faith,
but help us to approach it with the knowledge that we are in
Christ, your beloved, and you love us with the same love that
you love your beloved. And Father, I pray that you would
stir up within our hearts all of these promises, the graces
of your Spirit of love, joy, patience, long-suffering, Faith,
Father, fill us with the fruits of your Spirit. Touch us, even
as Gary said earlier in his message, as he quoted from Calvin, that
you made both body and soul. We are knit together in our mother's
wombs. You're upholding every atom of
our body. Help us to not come with doubt
for the needs of our body and the needs of our soul. But Father,
may we rejoice with the faith of Abraham who laughed in the
face of impossibilities, knowing that nothing is impossible for
you. Bless this, your people, we pray,
in Jesus' name, amen.
The Promise of Passover
Series Joshua
| Sermon ID | 1115221203123 |
| Duration | 40:35 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday Service |
| Bible Text | Joshua 5:10-12 |
| Language | English |
Add a Comment
Comments
No Comments
© Copyright
2026 SermonAudio.