We will remain standing this morning for the reading of God's Word if you have your Bibles with us Our reading will continue in our journey through the gospel of Luke I'll be reading from Luke chapter 22 beginning again at verse 1 here now the word of the Lord Now the feast of unleavened bread drew near which is called Passover and the chief priests and scribes sought how they might kill Jesus for they feared the people and And then Satan entered Judas, surnamed Iscariot, who was numbered among the twelve. So he went his way and conferred with the chief priests and captains how he might betray him to them. And they were glad and agreed to give him money. So Judas promised and sought opportunity to betray Jesus to them in the absence of the multitude. Then came the day of unleavened bread, when the Passover must be killed or sacrificed. And Jesus sent Peter and John, saying, Go and prepare the Passover for us, that we may eat. And so they said to Him, Where do you want us to prepare? And He said to them, Behold, when you enter the city, a man will meet you carrying a pitcher of water. Follow him into the house which he enters. Then you shall say to the master of the house, the teacher says to you, where is the guest room where I may prepare the Passover with my disciples? And then he will show you a large furnished upper room. There, make ready. And so they went and found it as He had said to them, and they prepared the Passover. And when the hour had come, Jesus sat down and the twelve apostles with Him. And He said to them, with fervent desire, I have desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. For I say to you, I will no longer eat of it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God. This is the word of the Lord. Thank You, God. Let's pray. Our gracious Heavenly Father, we thank You again for the beautiful gift of Your Son. We thank You for Your Spirit's inspiration of the Word of God that we might know Your truth. We pray that He be with us today, guiding my words, helping us to rightly divide Your truth, helping us all to learn what it is to hear and obey what it is Jesus would teach us this day. We pray in His name and all of God's people said, Amen. You may be seated. As we continue our journey through the Gospel of Luke, we know now that the public ministry of Jesus has ended. Satan has entered Judas, who is now plotting with the enemies of Jesus to put him to death. Now, it's interesting that the chief priests, Caiaphas, who we're going to learn a lot about in the coming weeks, actually prophesied the very event that will now unfold. Jesus saving His people from their sins. John gives us this insight in his Gospel in chapter 11 where we read at verse 47, Then the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered a council and said, What shall we do? For this man Jesus works many signs. If we let Him alone like this, everyone will believe in Him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place Notice the pride. "...and nation. And one of them, Caiaphas, being high priest that year, said to them, You know nothing at all, nor do you consider that it is expedient for us that one man should die for the people, and not that the whole nation should perish. Now this he did not say on his own authority, but being high priest that year, He prophesied that Jesus would die for the nation, and not only for that nation, but that He would gather together in one the children of God who were scattered abroad. As we learned last week, none of the events of this final week in Jesus' life came as a surprise to God. He is able to use even wicked men like Caiaphas to accomplish His eternal purposes and plants. As the appointed time drew near for Jesus, the Son of God, as the Lamb of God, to be the sacrifice for sin, Jesus instructs His disciples how they were to prepare what would be their last Passover meal. This week, we will see how God was preparing the way for this final Passover meal down through the centuries. And in two weeks, we will see how the Passover is fulfilled and it comes very appropriately this year on Easter Sunday. So from our text in Luke 22 this morning, we will see not only the significance of this Passover, but also the practical preparations. And that's really where our applications are going to be. the practical preparations that were made by the disciples for the meal that Jesus longed to have with them. Now, I want to note some of the practical matters at the start, because it's good to understand what's going on here before we look at the significance of Passover. The disciples know that Passover is approaching. It was a feast that the Jews celebrated each year. And they knew that they had to prepare a place to celebrate it. In this account that we have here in Luke, we again see Jesus openly showing His authority and power as the Son of God. The second person of the Trinity. The second person of the eternal Trinity. Jesus knows where to send the disciples and what they are to look for. And He knows the fact that there is still a large upper room available at this late hour in Jerusalem. And that's something we often overlook. But, you know, it would swell sometimes to a million people in Jerusalem for the Passover. And every place that was possible to have a Passover meal would have been crowded beyond belief. And yet here is an upper room that's available. Now, the other thing is that a man carrying a pot of water would have stood out. It wasn't like the Indiana Jones movie where you see baskets everywhere. You know, there would have been normally women carrying the pots of water, so a man carrying the water would have stood out. And of course, it could have various meanings. If Mike were here, he would tell you that a pot of water is just a pot of water, but in the Bible, sometimes it has meaning. I think I'm not able to fully explain it. I'm sure it's something in the centuries of the church will probably have more meaning. But one thing that did strike me is that we should remember that the very first miracle, public miracle that Jesus performed also involved pots of water. At the wedding in Canaan, Jesus took and had men fill six pots of water and turned it into very fine wine. And now Jesus is about to present at this meal tonight wine as His blood in a sacrament that has now been served for almost 2,000 years. Now, there's also debate about whether the owner of this home was known to Jesus. but there's nothing in the text that would indicate that such was the case. However, the detail that we are given in the text is important. We're told that John and Peter were the two disciples who would have known where the meal was going to be taken. They were sent ahead. The other disciples who came with Jesus later would not have known where this meal was going to take place, and that included Judas. You see, from the text we know that Judas was looking for a place to betray Jesus in the absence of the multitude. That evening meal could have been the ideal place for Judas to quietly betray his Lord. But the betrayal of Jesus, just as all of the other details, was not going to come at the wrong time. Jesus longed to have this final Passover with His disciples. And He still had much instruction to give them, and us, which we find in the Gospel of John, where John spends all of five chapters explaining what happened at the Passover meal. The other three Gospel writers tell us about the Lord's Supper being instituted, but Passover, the meal, relatively quickly. It is John who gives us the full details of all that Jesus had to share. And I'm going to leave that to you for your homework, because it would add another 80 sermons to my series on Luke if I tried to cover all that. But if you look at John 13, 14, 15, 16, and 17, Those are all discourses and discussions that Jesus had with His disciples at the Last Supper. So, study that this week. When we also look at the timing of this meal, the location may not have been the only surprise for the disciples. They would have been surprised to find a large open room. they would also have been surprised at when Jesus wanted to have the meal. Again, it is John who gives us an important detail. When he tells us that the religious leaders did not want to enter Pilate's palace so that they would be defiled and not able to celebrate the Passover on the next day. That was on Friday. Friday they refused to go into his palace because they were going to celebrate the Passover on Saturday. Now, this is one of those places where the critics of the Bible think they can really have a field day, because they'll tell you that it just doesn't make any sense when you put all of the gospel accounts together. Well, the explanation is actually quite simple. If we accept what the gospel writers say, and if we know our history. Passover was considered to be a Sabbath day, a day where no work could be done. And according to Jewish histories, after the return of the Babylonian exile, they made a change. Whenever the Passover fell on a Friday, they would move it to Saturday so that work was not disrupted for two days in a row. Because you couldn't work on the Passover and you couldn't work on the Sabbath. So they combined them, and this was another of their unbiblical additions, to the law of God. It was just one of their traditions. So assuming that this year brought Passover on Friday, then Jesus would have celebrated the meal with His disciples after sundown on Thursday night, which was the beginning of the day for the Jewish calendar, and He would have been crucified on the same Passover day on Friday. Jesus would have been dead and buried by the end of the actual Passover day, which I believe was His appointed time. Now, if the Pharisees had combined the days, they were still preparing for Saturday and would not have wanted to be defiled on Friday, which is what we see in John's Gospel. Now, there are some people who try to reconcile this by saying that Jesus was crucified on Thursday, but the problem with that is then you have Him celebrating this meal on Wednesday, which has no relationship to the Passover at all. So, I'm in good company with John Calvin making the same assumption about the passing days, but the important point to remember is that we know that Jesus had come to Jerusalem at His appointed time, and we can be sure that He was crucified as the sacrifice for the sins of His people at the right time in God's plan. It was a time that John the Baptist was looking forward to when he declared at the beginning of Jesus' ministry, Behold the Lamb of God. Yes, God had been making preparations down through history for the seed of the woman to crush the head of Satan. We see Abel with a lamb at the sacrifice just outside of the Garden of Eden. Noah sacrifices lambs just outside of the ark. Abraham offers his own son and God saves Isaac. His life is spared when a ram is sacrificed in his place. We know that lambs were an essential part to the entire sacrificial system of the Old Testament which pointed to Jesus. What we want to focus on this morning is the event that is reviewed and proclaimed and discussed throughout the Scriptures. The Passover meal that Jesus longed to share with His disciples this one last time. Something that has been a central tradition now for 1,500 years and was about to be changed. A change that would come at a very high price for Jesus. but something that He longed for nonetheless. A few weeks ago, we talked about how the entire exodus from Egypt was a picture of Jesus saving His people and bringing them into the Promised Land. But it is at the Passover that we see the focus on His saving His people from their sins. So again, if you have your Bibles, let's turn back to Exodus 11-12. We'll be quoting from there to review what should be very familiar passages for us all. And before I quote the passages there in Exodus, we also need to remember, just as we've seen over and over, that the problems that God's people were having in Egypt were not a surprise to God. He didn't wake up one morning and go, oh, what happened to my people? Where are they at? What's happening to them? As we said last week, God is in control and He knows what He's doing, even when we don't understand all of the details from our perspective. There were hundreds of years in Egypt that I'm sure God's people wondered how in the world this was a plan of salvation. God's people were suffering greatly in Egypt. And you need to understand, they were not exiled there. They weren't being punished for something they'd done wrong. They had gone down to Egypt in obedience to God, following Joseph's instruction. And under Joseph and probably the following generation, they had a tremendous impact converting the nation of Egypt and making it a world power. But over time, they began to be persecuted. Now, God had actually explained all of this to Abraham when He assured him that he would be faithful to His covenant promises. And it came at that beautiful time in Genesis 15 where God passes through the animals that have been divided Himself to say, let this happen to Me if I don't keep My promises. But listen to verse 13, Then He said to Abram, Know certainly that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, Egypt, and will serve them and they will inflict them for 400 years." That's a heritage to have to pass on to your children. And also, the nation whom they serve, I will judge. Afterward, they shall come out with great possessions. Now as for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace and shall be buried in a good old age. But in the fourth generation, They shall return here to the promised land, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete. So after more than 400 years, it is time for God to move His plan of salvation forward and to demonstrate to the entire world that He is the great Savior of His people and the just judge of all the wicked. He calls Moses as an unwilling servant back from the wilderness to confront the wicked Pharaoh and brings a severe set of plagues down on the people of Egypt. But all throughout these plagues, they hardened their hearts, and God finally has to bring a judgment so severe that it causes the Egyptian people, as foretold, to cast out God's people, including giving them a lot of their gold and silver and jewels, great possessions for the journey. Now, God explains His plan to Moses in Exodus 11. Looking at verse 4, we read this, Then Moses said, Thus says Jehovah, about midnight I will go into the midst of Egypt, and all the firstborn of the land of Egypt shall die. From the firstborn of Pharaoh, who sits on the throne, even to the firstborn female servant who is behind the hand mill, and all the firstborn of the animals. There shall be a great cry throughout all the land of Egypt, such as was not like it before, nor shall be like it again." Now we need to think about what that list of firstborn really means. From the pharaoh to the handmaiden. From the most powerful man in the land to probably a single mom trying to raise a child. All of the firstborn were to die. The rich and the poor, the powerful and the weak, the men and the women, and even the animals, because we know that the curse of sin affects even the creation. But all of them were under the curse of sin. In verse 7 we read it, But against none of the children of Israel shall a dog move its tongue, against man or beast, that you may know that Jehovah does not make a difference between the Egyptians and Israel. God was going to demonstrate who His people were. And just so you don't think we've got visitors today that you've wandered into a Jehovah Witnesses group, we read Jehovah wherever you see in the Old Testament LORD spelled in all capitals, it is God's name that He gave Himself to Israel. And He uses it here to identify Himself as the God of Israel. In the midst of this final judgment, God institutes the Passover meal that Jesus now longs to share with His disciples. It is explained in great detail in chapter 12, and we'll look this morning at just a few of those details. In verse 1, we read this, Now the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying, This month shall be the beginning of months, it shall be the first month of the year to you." God was about to demonstrate His power in such a powerful way that they were to change the very calendar. This was the fourth month of the year. They were going to change the calendar so that it would become the first month. In much the same way, the Old Testament Sabbath, our day of worship, has been moved to the first day of the week when Jesus was raised in power. In verse 3 we read this, Speak to all the congregation of Israel, saying, On the tenth day of this month, every man shall take for himself a lamb according to the house of his father, a lamb for the household. And if the household is too small for the lamb, let him and his neighbor next to his house take it according to the number of persons, according to each man's need. you shall make your count for the lamb." They were to have just the right amount of lamb for the people that they fed in their household, including the children. And I believe that we have here, with more detail that's given a little later in the chapter about the fact that they would have wasted none of the lamb, we have a much better picture and explanation of the efficacy of the death of Christ than we often have in our Reformed proclamations about limited atonement. Jesus died for the sins of His people. And He knew who His people were, and His death was sufficient, just like those lambs were for that household. Your lambs shall be without blemish, it says in verse 5. A male of the first year. A lamb without blemish. Foreshadowing Jesus, the spotless Son of God, who went to the cross with no sin of His own. Verse 6 we read, Then the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it at twilight, and they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts of the houses where they eat. For our sins to be forgiven, it required the shedding of the blood of God's own Son. Hence, we see many bloody rituals in the Old Testament. The rite of circumcision. All of those sacrifices and this marking of the doorpost. Now, I'm not sure that we always understand the image that's here, and I'm going to do something this morning that's probably going to leave the image with your kids' minds, and hopefully they'll ask lots of questions about it. Everybody, I think, knows what a doorpost is. Kids, can you tell me what a lentil is? It's not a bean. But it's not a term that we use. Now, I thought about this during the week. We have a rented facility here, so it's not exactly how we would have designed a sanctuary. And, you know, that's always been kind of an eyesore, except for this morning. It gives me a great way to demonstrate a door. The door has door posts along the sides. The beam that goes across the top is the lentil. So God tells them to take blood, and since it's rented, I didn't think they'd want blood on their door. So I'm going to use the Hollywood example. They took a hyssop branch, which was like a brush, make sure all the kids can see, and they literally took and they put blood on the doorpost. You'd better catch it, Greg. They put it on the doorpost and they put it across the window. Put that up there so the kids can see it. OK. Not something you can forget, huh? But you see, God uses things like this to demonstrate His truths and to leave us with impressions that we can't forget. Because as we think about that, God goes on to give us the details of this meal. And He says in verse 11, it is Jehovah's Passover. For I will pass through the land of Egypt on that night, and I will strike all of the firstborn of the land of Egypt, both man and beast, against all the gods of Egypt. I will execute judgment. I am Jehovah." The nation of Israel was deserving of justice. of judgment, just as we are, because of sin. Because they were born in sin, just as we were, and because they had committed in their lives actual sins, just as we have. The blood on the doorpost would stay the hand of the angel of death. It pictured the blood of Christ that actually propitiated the wrath of God against our sins. You remember, that's a big word that we've been learning because we need to understand that God doesn't just say, oh, never mind about our sin. But the sins that we have been committed deserve the wrath of God, and that wrath is taken by Jesus. Satisfied. And what the picture is here, is that the blood being assigned. Listen to verse 13. Now the blood, the blood that's on that door post, shall be a sign for your houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and the plague shall not be on you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt." This was not to be a meal that they kept just one time. It was to be an annual event reminding them of God's great salvation. So this day shall be to you a memorial. And you shall keep it as the feast to the Lord throughout your generations. You shall keep it as a feast by the everlasting ordinance. Moses repeats the instructions for the meal, and again, in verse 24, reminds them. You shall observe this thing as an ordinance for you and your sons forever. It will come to pass when you come to the land where Jehovah will give you, just as He promised, that you shall keep this service. And it shall be when your children say to you, what do you mean by this service? Just like some of you are going to get questions today about Pastor Stoose and his ketchup. What do you mean by this service that you shall say it is the Passover sacrifice of Jehovah who passed over the houses of the children of Israel in Egypt when He struck the Egyptians and delivered their households? We are to instruct our children that God passes over the sins of His people because they have been satisfied by the blood of Jesus. We often think, how am I going to face God? We sin and we're guilty, and we don't know how to ever make things right. And it's at those times that we remember these graphic pictures that God gives us, remembering that when Jesus looks at us, when the Father looks at us in judgment, He sees not our sin, but the blood of His Son. God's people obeyed, and then we read in verse 29, And it came to pass at midnight that Jehovah struck all the firstborn of the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on the throne, to the firstborn of the captive who was in the dungeon, and all the firstborn of the livestock. Pharaoh sets God's people free. And Moses reminds us that things turned out exactly the way God told Abraham that they would. In verse 40 we read, Now the sojourn of the people of Israel who lived in Egypt was 430 years. And it came to pass at the end of the 430 years, on that very same day, it came to pass that all the armies of Jehovah, the people of God, went out from the land of Egypt. And it is a night of solemn observance for Jehovah bringing them out of the land of Egypt. This is the night of Jehovah, a solemn observance for all the children of Israel throughout all their generations. Such was the case throughout all the rest of the Old Testament. And as we shall see in two weeks, when the Passover is fulfilled in Christ, We now continue to remember it around this Lord's table each and every week. Now, as the Passover meal approaches, the disciples may have thought that it was just kind of routine. You know, this would have been at least the third, perhaps the fourth Passover meal that they would have shared with Jesus. And they knew the rituals, and they knew the things to do, and they knew how to make preparation. But Jesus, on the other hand, saw all of the significance as His appointed time was approaching. He was the Lamb to be sacrificed. And He longed with fervent desire to have this meal with His disciples. And this brings us to our lessons that we need to learn today and the applications that we make. And they are several, and they are significant. As we've studied Luke's orderly account, we've seen the unfolding of God's great plan of salvation and all that it entails. We must remember that when we see the history of God's people, that is a history that is our history. And that we are now moving through our time as God works in us and through us. bringing curses or blessings, depending on whether we are serving Him submissively and willingly, or being used by God as those rebels like Judas and Caiaphas, who carry out God's plan unknowingly in the midst of their rebellion, which only brings judgment upon themselves. The other important point that we need to remember as we think about being in God's history, is that our routines are not just routines. You see, they are known to God. And they often carry with them great significance that we might not see from our human perspective. Our God loves routine. And His routines are anything but routine. Consider how the sun came up this morning. It did. It came up this morning just like it does every day. even when we don't give it much thought. But kids, I got a question for you. What do you think the world would be like today if the sun hadn't come up? Dark. There'd be chaos. People would be concerned. We couldn't go probably a day without the sun's warmth, without freezing this planet. It would be the end of life as we know it, making global warming look like a picnic. But you see, the Bible not only says that all things were created by Jesus, but it tells us that all things hold together by Him as well. In other words, if Jesus tired of the routine, the sun wouldn't come up. We should be very thankful that God likes routines. But you say, oh, that's different. Of course God has important routines, but His routines aren't like my routines. My routines are things like washing the dishes or going to my boring job every day. What could be significant about those? But you see, let's think about it from our text. How about that man who carried the water pot in our text this morning? If he had failed to do this simple routine, the disciples would not have found the location of the upper room. Now some think that that was young Mark that was carrying the water pot going back to his house. So imagine if it was. I know sons well enough to think that Mark probably was saying, you've got to be kidding. That's woman's work. You want me out in public carrying a water pot? Besides, I'm getting old enough that I shouldn't have to be listening to my mother. Tempting, aren't they? But, imagine how Mark, as an obedient son who did obey, imagine how he felt after he heard these stories and realized the significance of what he did. How about that room? We're told that it was a big upper room. It had been tiled. It was completely built out. It was furnished. Do you think the owner was upset when it appeared that no one was going to use it that year? He may have fixed it up for some of his relatives or friends, and when they canceled at the last minute, he may have been very disappointed and thought, wow, all that expense and work in vain. Nobody's going to use it for a Passover meal this year. How about the craftsmen who put down the tile or built the furniture? If they had grown bored or quit or even slept in too many mornings, this work might not have been done. And in both cases, again, think about their reaction afterwards, when they realized that the Lord of Glory had His final Passover meal in that room, on those tiles, lounging on that furniture. Now, if these people had sinned and not done what they were supposed to do, would that have thwarted God's plan? No. As we learned last week, even open rebellion cannot thwart the great plans of God that He has made. It would have happened the way it needed to happen. The lesson that we must learn as Christians, what we must come to understand is that God will in fact establish the work of our hands as He promised in Psalm 90. That man needed to carry the water pot. Those people had to prepare that room. John and Peter had to go into town and follow Jesus' instructions and prepare the meal. And that's what the psalmist means when it says God will establish the work of our hands. This should encourage us as Christians to claim the promises of Proverbs where it tells us that God will direct our paths. That's significant because God knows the future. He knows where history is going, and so He knows the right path for us to take. We can't tell what's going to happen tomorrow. So who are we to determine where our paths should go? We must learn to ask Him sincerely each and every day to keep us on that path. We must each day ask the important question, what does the Lord require of me? And brothers and sisters, we need to be ready to wash those dishes for mom, if that's the answer. Let's pray.