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Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Open this up with a word of prayer. All right, we're going to turn to our next song. We should have a sheet next to you for our next song, How Great Thou Art. How Great Thou Art. How Great Thou Art. Everyone got a sheet? All right, How Great Thou Art. How Great Thou Art. How Great Thou Art. How Great Thou Art. How Great Thou Art. How Great Thou Art. How Great Thou Art. How Great Thou Art. How Great Thou Art. How Great Thou Art. How Great Thou Art. How Great Thou Art. How Great Thou Art. How Great Thou Art. How Great Thou Art. How Great Thou Art. How Great Thou Art. How Great Thou Art. How Great Thou Art. How Great Thou Art. How Great Thou Art. How Great Thou Art. How Great Thou Art. How Great Thou Art. How Great Thou Art. How Great Thou Art How Great Thou Art. How Great Thou Art. How Great Thou Art. It saves my soul, my Savior, God, to be. How Great Thou Art. How Great Thou Art. How Great Thou Art. And when I think that God is Son of Spirit, sent him to die, my scares continue. That on the cross my burden gladly bearing that on the cross my burden gladly bearing my burden gladly bearing He bled and died to take away my sin. He bled and died to take away my sin. It saves my soul, my Savior, God, to be. How Great Thou Art. How Great Thou Art. It saves my soul, my Savior, God, to be. How Great Thou Art. How Great Thou Art. How Great Thou Art. How Great Thou Art. When Christ shall come with shout of acclamation and take me home a joy shall fill my heart and I shall bow in humble adoration and dare proclaim my God, how great Thou art. Then saves my soul, my Savior, God, to be. How Great Thou Art. How Great Thou Art. Then saves my soul, my Savior, God, to be. How Great Thou Art. How Great Thou Art. How Great Thou Art. Amen. Amen. All right. Great singing this afternoon. It's time to go through our announcements once again. If you all will bolt and zip up your hand. Everyone pretty much was here this morning so we're going to go ahead and go through these announcements quickly this afternoon. If you open up to the first page, we've got the service times. As always, Sunday morning at 10 30. Sunday afternoon again at 4 p.m. and Wednesday night 7 is our Bible study. Esther 6 is the chapter we're in this week. We've got the soul winning opportunities as well as the salvation and baptisms the month of February as well as the 2021. Let's go ahead and count up the salvation support today. Can you zip up your hand real quick? One for the Millers there. And then Hero, do you have your hand up? No. Rough day, huh? It was rough. Was it Hispanic or no? Just rough. Hey, praise the Lord for that one person that called the name Lord today. That's always worthwhile. It's worthwhile for everybody going out there. Even that one person to get saved. Praise God for that and that's the soul saved from hell. Was there anything else I missed now? I asked this morning. Is there anyone else during the week and had any salvations to report? Alright. Keep up the good work with preaching the Gospel. We've got the offering totals through the month of February down there at the bottom of the page. We have a new prayer request added today for brother Joseph. He has been out. Obviously we've been missing them. He is having a hard time I think kicking some strep throat. Let's keep him in our prayers as well. I know what that is like. I used to have problems with strep throat all the time when I was a kid until they pulled my tonsils out of my throat. I don't have that problem with much anymore. If something gives you a hard time, cut it out. We don't really need it anyways. Just kidding. We did the updates this morning. I don't think there is anything else to update with. Please add brother Freeman to your prayers so that he can get well from the strep throat that has been plaguing him. On the next page of course is our prayer challenge. The challenge is to pray for at least 20 minutes every day every single day and be praying for everyone on the prayer list every single day as well. We have the men's preaching class. The next one is scheduled for February 27. Hope to see a lot of men out there for that 10 a.m. right here. It is the same format as we have been doing. If you have any questions on that, just let me know. The baby shower for Mrs. Logan is going to be on the 28th in between the church services. There will be lunch provided as well as refreshments and everything else that they do. Games and all that. I would like to be able to get an RSVP. Whoever is planning on going to that baby shower so that we can purchase the right amount of food. Mrs. Mostel, are you okay with being the point of contact for just collecting the RSVP? Whoever is planning on coming, please let Mrs. Mostel know if you plan on coming to that event so that she can relate to me the total number for who is coming. I appreciate that. I want to make sure we have enough food for everybody that is going to be in attendance. I meant to announce that this morning, but that is what happens when my wife is not with me and she is asking me to do things before I leave the house. There are all kinds of things that happen in between there and here. Sorry. I remember it tonight. That is something. The camping trip is going to be great. I talked about that this morning as well. Trying to get all the details under wraps now in the next week or two. Trying to just get that squared away. Bible memory passage John chapter 8. The goal is to get all of John chapter 8 memorized with verses 12 through 30. If you can get those memorized in these 10 weeks, you will earn a prize for being able to do that. Brother Doty's birthday is today. We have Brother Carter's on the 17th as well as Gideon's. And then Jermaine is on the 20th. And that wraps up our announcements for today. Is there anything else that you would like to add? Yes. Excuse me. We just got the rest of our LED lights for the lighting in the building. So anyone who is a little bit handy and wants to help replace some of these old fluorescent tubes that we got here we appreciate your help. We are trying to get all the consistent color and the lighting in the auditorium. Right now we have some yellow and some white and kind of a mixed match of lighting here. I don't see any flickering anymore. That's the best thing. The lights just kind of give you a headache because they are going on and off. We just got a whole bunch more. So we got like, I don't know, 15 lights now to replace. Let me know if you want to help get those replaced. We would love to have the help. And that is about it for our announcement. Brother Peter, please lead us in our next song. Alright. If you can open up your headphones. This is song number 257. Song number 257, Look and Live. Song 257. Look and live. Look and live. My brother, live. Look to Jesus. Now and live. Tis reported in his word. Hallelujah. It is only that you look and live. I've a message full of love. Hallelujah. A message of my faith for you. Tis a message from above. Hallelujah. Jesus said and I know Jesus knows. Look and live. My brother, live. Look to Jesus. Now and live. Tis reported in his word. Hallelujah. It is only that you look and live. Life is offered unto you. Hallelujah. Eternal life thy soul shall have. If you'll only look to him. Hallelujah. Look to Jesus. You can't see. Look and live. My brother, live. Look to Jesus. Now and live. Tis reported in his word. Hallelujah. It is only that you look and live. I will tell you how I came. Hallelujah. To Jesus when he made me whole. Just believe in his name. Hallelujah. I trusted him. He saved my soul. Look and live. My brother, live. Look to Jesus. Now and live. Tis reported in his word. Hallelujah. It is only that you look and live. Amen. Great to see you. This time we're going to collect our Sunday afternoon offering. Ask brother Lindsey if he can do that. Alright, while the offering plate is being passed around, if you can open up your Bibles to the book of John chapter 1. That's the book of John chapter 1. And as we do customer here at Stronghold Baptist Church, read the entire chapter on Ask Brother Carter. He can please do that for us. Once again, that's the Gospel of John chapter 1. In the beginning was the word. And the word was with God. And the word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him. And without him was not anything made that was made. In him was the light. And the light was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness. And the darkness comprehended they not. There was a man sent from God whose name was John. The same came for a witness. To bear witness of the light that all men through him might believe. He was not that light but was sent to bear witness of that light. That was the true light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world. He was in the world and the world was made by him and the world knew him not. He came unto his own and his own received him not. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God. Even to them that believe on his name which were born not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man but of God. And the word was made flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld his glory and we beheld his glory the glory as of the only begotten of the father full of grace and truth. John bear witness of him and cried saying this was he of whom I spake. He that cometh after me is preferred before me for he was before me and of his fullness have we all received and grace for grace for the law was given by Moses but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. No man had sinned God at any time the only begotten son which is in the bosom of the father he hath declared him and this is the record of John when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him who art thou and he confessed and denied not but confessed I am not the Christ and they asked him what then are thou Elias and he said I am not are thou that prophet and he answered no then said they unto him who art thou that we may give an answer to them that sin us what says thou of thyself he said I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness make straight the way of the Lord as said the prophet Esaias and they which were sent were of the Pharisees and they asked him and said unto him why baptizes thou then if thou be not that Christ nor Elias neither that prophet John answered them saying I baptize with water but there senteth one among you whom ye know not he it is who coming after me is preferred before me whose shoe latchet I am not worthy to unloose these things were done in Betharla beyond Jordan where John was baptizing the next day John see Jesus coming unto him and said behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world this is he of whom I said after me cometh a man which is preferred before me for he was before me and I knew him not but that he should be made manifest to Israel therefore am I to come baptizing with water and John bear record saying I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dog and it abode upon him and I knew him not but he that sent me to baptize with water the same said unto me upon whom thou shall see the Spirit descending and remaining on him the same is he which baptizes with the Holy Ghost and I saw and bear record that this is the Son of God again the next day after John stood and two of his disciples and looking upon Jesus as he walked he said behold the Lamb of God and the two disciples heard him speak and they followed Jesus then Jesus turned and saw them following and saith unto them what seek ye they said unto him rabbi which is to say being interpreted master where dwellest thou he saith unto them come and see they came and saw where he dwelt and abode with him that day for it was about the tenth hour one of the two which heard John speak and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter's brother he first findeth his own brother Simon and saith unto him we have found the Messiahs which is being interpreted the Christ and he brought him to Jesus and when Jesus beheld him he said thou art Simon the son of Jonah thou shall be called Cephas which is by interpretation a stone the day following Jesus will go forth into Galilee and find Philip and saith unto him follow me now Philip was of Bethsaida the city of Andrew and Peter Philip findeth Nathanael and saith unto him we have found him of whom Moses and the law and the prophets did write Jesus of Nazareth the son of Joseph and Nathanael saith unto him can there any good thing come out of Nazareth Philip saith unto him come and see Jesus saw Nathanael coming to him and saith unto him behold an Israelite indeed in whom is no gown Nathanael saith unto him whence knowest thou me Nathanael saith unto him before that Philip called thee when thou was under the fig tree I saw thee Nathanael answered and saith unto him rabbi thou art the son of God thou art the king of Israel Jesus answered and saith unto him because I saith unto thee I saw thee under the fig tree believe is thou thou shall see greater things than these and he saith unto him barely barely I say unto you hereafter ye shall see heaven open and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the son of man let's have a word of prayer brother would you mind praying for us please dear heavenly father lord thank you so much for this church thank you so much for this congregation of people that love you father lord I just pray that your spirit come in this place and you can fill pastor Burges with power and with authority to be able to preach the scriptures father and that you can be with him like you were within the study that he made during these scriptures lord lord I just pray that you can preach with power and authority in the name of Jesus come in alright brother Carl I'm just making sure you get enough reading in doing these real long chapters John 1 and Luke 1 today in church but hey as I said this morning you know we're focusing in on Jesus and what better chapters than John 1 and Luke 1 anyways to start with to just open up and be looking at Jesus Christ as our our main topic here that we're looking to learn about and learn from so in John 1 of course I mentioned this already this morning that this evening's sermon I'm going to be talking about you know the series we're doing more about Jesus and the first portion of the first series of sermons are going to be regarding you know who Jesus is based on what he's referred to in the bible right what he's called in the bible so this morning was son of man son of god those are both ways of identifying him that are very common throughout the scripture and then this evening it's the lamb of god and all of these are extremely important you know I mean these aren't just small nuanced things you could find in scripture these are these are fundamental things about Jesus Christ that we're going over especially in the first few sermons I'm going to be preaching in this series again this one is just massively massively important the fact that Jesus Christ is being referred to as the lamb of god essentially from the very beginning of his ministry speaks volumes this isn't something that he came a term or a name that he came to get like later on as he's performing his ministry this is from the very very beginning of his showing essentially unto Israel right showing unto Israel starting with John the Baptist you know preparing the way before the lord he's preaching in the wilderness he's preaching and baptizing with the baptism of repentance and getting people ready for Jesus Christ to come on the scene and he's already getting a following and getting people's attention through his hard preaching and his own preaching with authority and you know the Bible says that among them they're born of women there's not a greater than John the Baptist so John the Baptist is a great man of God I mean a great preacher right just doing just awesome things for the lord and essentially what we see here in John chapter 1 is him just after you know this is after the baptism of Jesus Christ but he saw a witness so John excuse me was given by revelation John the Baptist that you know as he's baptizing the person whom he sees the spirit of God descend upon that's the Christ that was how he was able to know and to be able to point people to Christ because he knew that that was going to happen through his ministry as he's out baptizing people well when he baptized Jesus Christ when they both went down into the water both John and Jesus he baptized him and they came up again the spirit of God descended like a dove upon Jesus Christ and John witnesses this I mean he literally sees it with his eyes he sees the spirit descending upon Jesus Christ knowing this is the Christ this is the Christ this is who we were looking for this is what my ministry was all about and now that he's accomplished that goal that end the end of his ministry to be able to point people to Christ now he's shifted in a sense he's never he's always been trying to point people to Christ but now he knows who that is right so he's still trying to lead people to Christ even before Jesus was identified as the Christ through his baptism but now he knows who it is and when we look down in verse number 29 the Bible says the next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him and saith behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world so right off the bat he's saying this is the Christ this is the Lamb of God and that term that he's using the Lamb of God again it's extremely important because we're going to go back we're going to look at two instances for the Lamb of God one is with Abraham before the law of Moses was even established and then also in the law with the Passover Lamb being representative of Jesus Christ himself these are where we derive all the meaning and importance behind the Lamb of God and Jesus being the Lamb of God and how important these events were especially that Passover Lamb in the Old Testament just carries through for millennia of people observing the sacrifices hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years the Lamb being sacrificed and Jesus embodying that Lamb and being representative of that Lamb to where and we're not going to cover all the references in the New Testament where he is called the Lamb of God it's not just in John chapter 1 but I wanted to start reading here because just the reference to the Lamb of God is 100% tied in with he that takes away the sin of the world right the sacrificial Lamb was made for forgiveness of sins it was made for deliverance it was made for that atonement and we'll get into all that as we go through the actual scriptures regarding that verse number 30 says this is he of whom I said after me cometh a man which is preferred before me for he was before me now we know that John the Baptist was born physically in this world before Jesus Christ because Elizabeth was already with child when Mary conceived right and she was informed of that also that your cousin also is with child who is considered barren another miraculous birth at least in the world's eyes it was still a physical conception with an actual father and mother but it's still miraculous in the sense that she was barren she didn't have any children and she was already past age yet was still able to give birth to John the Baptist who was used greatly of God so why does he say he was before me because he knows that this is Christ you know that this is the Son of God John the Baptist knew all this before Jesus even before he started teaching that he's the Son of God he's the Christ he is who they're looking for because he knew that the Son of God you know is God and that's who they're looking for in a Messiah it's important not to look past this because I've heard and I can't remember specifically who teaches this and maybe the Jews or the Judaizers the people who look to the Jews for all their answers on understanding scripture which by the way don't go to the Jews to understand scripture okay don't think you could get some extra meaning behind what the Bible says oh but let's go and read up on what the rabbis say and go talk to these guys and see well what do they think and what have they historically thought about Jesus Christ or about the Messiah and see how we can fit that in or what extra understanding look they're going to steal you the wrong way they didn't accept Christ when he came what makes you think they have anything right about how the tradition should have been regardless of what they did even if some of the things they did they still know to this day it doesn't matter because they didn't accept Christ if they're not accepting Christ today don't worry about getting insight from them because they rejected Jesus Christ and where I was starting to go with this about John even understanding that he was before me people will say oh this concept this teaching of Jesus being the son of God like that nobody knew anything about that that the Jews weren't looking for a Christ that was God in the flesh because people will always try to attack the scripture in many different fronts and they'll say well they weren't even looking for a son of God to be the Christ they were just looking for a great leader well that's what the Jews are looking for today they're not looking for God in the flesh they're looking for just some great leader some great teacher kind of like the Muslim religion that we were just talking about this morning that looks to Abraham they look to Jesus they look to all these other figures well the Jews are very similar they look to Abraham they look to Moses obviously they don't believe what was written because if they believe Moses they believe Jesus and they reject Jesus so we don't want to be going to them for any of our understanding on anything in scripture unless you just want to know what's wrong you want to know what's wrong go ask some Christ rejecting Jew and you'll get the wrong answer but I don't know what good that's going to do you even something just this small verse after me cometh a man which is preferred before he was before me before all the teachings of Jesus he knew this he didn't need to hear Jesus say that he's the son of God he didn't need to hear that he already knew that and he knew that from at least from his own revelation that he was going to be baptizing the son of God and having this great understanding that he's the Messiah he's the Christ he's the lamb of God verse number 31 and I knew him not but that he should be made manifest to Israel therefore might come baptizing with water so he's saying I didn't know he didn't say like obviously he knew him because he's his cousin but he didn't know up until the time when he baptized him that he was actually the Christ that he was the one I knew him not but in order to make him manifest to all Israel that's why he was doing his ministry that's why he was doing his baptism he says therefore might come baptizing with water that's why I'm doing this that's why I've been baptizing people so I can say hey this is him this is the Christ he's the one jump down to verse 35 again the next day after John stood excuse me and two of his disciples and looking upon Jesus as he walked he said behold the lamb of God and the two disciples heard him speak and they followed Jesus so at this point in his ministry now since he knows who it is he's just saying hey there's the lamb of God I'm not the lamb of God I came doing my job I came baptizing obviously he's still going to preach the truth and preach God's word and preach the Bible but he's saying hey there's the lamb of God right you're here with me behold the lamb of God and he was pointing people to Jesus ministry because Jesus is the savior I mean wouldn't you do the same you're like hey I'm going to preach God's word I'm going to do what I can but like if Jesus were here and he's like there's Jesus follow him this is what I'm preaching about this is what you go there you go he's right there follow him and this is exactly what John the Baptist was doing and he had the right spirit and the right attitude he wasn't in it for himself and he says behold he must increase but I must decrease right it's about him it's not about me but twice here we see him just referring just he's looking at Jesus saying that's the lamb of God so why is he calling the lamb of God turn if you go to Genesis chapter 22 Genesis chapter 22 I'm going to try to cover as much of the symbolism as possible in these stories because they're all relevant to Jesus Christ and who he is and everything that he did lines up with the stories that are given to us or these you know the sacrifices that were made so we're going to see in Genesis chapter 22 I'm going to start reading verse number 1 the Bible reads and it came to pass after these things that God did tempt Abraham and said unto him Abraham and he said behold here I am and he said take now thy son thine only son Isaac whom thou lovest and get thee into the land of Mariah and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of so now I mean this would be a hard request Abraham if you remember the story of Abraham that Isaac was a child of promise God promised Abraham he promised that his descent he made his promise that his descent is there I'm going to make your seed as a sand by the seashore as a stars innumerable so shall thy seed be and that this came to pass when he was past age when he's a hundred years old and was 90 years old that Isaac's born unto him so this long awaited child that he's been waiting for that God promised him he's been raising and rearing and loves I mean of course he loves his son right he loves his son there's so much involved in that relationship there and now God's testing him that's what means to tempt him saying okay now I want you to offer Isaac whom thou lovest for a burnt offering in the mountains so verse number three Abraham was obedient unto that request by the Lord or the command by the Lord saying this is what I want you to do and of course this is representative of God the father sacrificing his only begotten son right his beloved well beloved son that he loves so much being willing to offer that sacrifice for us Jesus Christ being that offering verse number three and Abraham rose up early in the morning and saddled his ass and took two of his young men with him and Isaac his son and claved the wood for the burnt offering and rose up and went unto the place of which God had told him then on the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place afar off and Abraham said unto his young men abide ye here with the ass and I and the lad will go yonder in worship and come again to you now you can't overlook any of these words and I'm skipping over some things that I'm sure are still symbolic I'm just not going to get into every last detail and to be honest with you I probably don't even know every last detail of where all the different applications you could make on this that are fulfilled but let's I don't want to skip past this one because this is also mentioned in Hebrews 11 that basically when God was asking him to go and sacrifice his son Abraham already knew the gospel the Bible says that the gospel was preached before unto Abraham and this isn't before Abraham's salvation ok when Abraham's well over a hundred years old he's already saved he knows the gospel he knows the plan of salvation and having that faith the Bible says in Hebrews 11 that he knew that God was able to raise up his son even from the dead that if God's asking him to do this God's not asking him to murder his son and this is what you know people who hate God and hate the Bible and just want to mock the Bible will try to liken this story to some lunatic possessed with devils oh well what if this guy just says well I hear from God and God told me to kill people and this is what you know they try to make this out to look like that type of a scenario which is the farthest thing from that scenario you could possibly get and bastardizing this story about the love of God and the great sacrifice that he made for humankind into some lunatic that just wants to murder somebody but he knows he tells his servants he says abide ye here with the ass and I and the lad will go yonder and worship and come again to you he's fully expecting him and Isaac to return back to the servants he said you guys stay here we're gonna go do the sacrifice and then we're both coming back so just wait for us here because he was never thinking that God's just gonna take away his son and you know what he knew that he wasn't anyways also because of the promise because Isaac was the child of promise Isaac didn't have any descendants yet so how could God keep his promise of being blessed with all that seed if the seed of promise which he said this is the child of promise to him before before he was born and then after he was born and maintaining that saying this is the child of promise it's in Isaac shall thy seed be called how could he possibly fulfill any of that if he was just gonna kill him and then he was just gonna be gone he had to know and he had the faith to know that what God says is true and it's going to come to pass now there's no way that he could just completely separate him from Isaac and since he already knew the gospel he had to have at some level an understanding that God is gonna show his might God is gonna show his power through a resurrection of his son because that's what he had hope in ultimately in the Lord Jesus Christ even though he didn't know him by name the Lord Jesus he didn't know the name of Jesus but he knew the gospel and I'll tell you this much you know what we don't believe in dispensationalism here the gospel is the same there's an everlasting gospel that hasn't changed the good news of the truth the good news of Jesus Christ of a messiah of a Christ just like we saw in the gospels you see in the gospels the Jews are looking for a Christ they're looking for a messiah they're looking for a savior because they know that there's going to be a savior it's not just something that just blindside oh wait there's a savior what just like Jesus rebuked Nicodemus a master of Israel no it's not these things you don't know what being born again is you have no idea what I'm talking about here it's always been the same Abraham knew that there was no way that God was going to just take Isaac from him here so he's going to act out what it is that God's telling him to do and you know what it is here for a reason the bible says in verse number six and Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it upon Isaac his son so here we see Isaac carrying the wood that he's going to use for the burnt offering he's going to use for the sacrifice the picture of Jesus Christ bearing his own cross that's made of wood that he's carrying to Gogotha that he's going to Calvary and he's carrying his own cross we see here Isaac's carrying this wood he lays this wood upon him and it says and he took fire in his hand and a knife and they went both of them together and Isaac spake unto Abraham his father and said my father and he said here am I my son and he said behold the fire in the wood but where is the lamb for a burnt offering so Isaac's kind of going well what's going on here right we've got the wood we've got the fire I know we're going so this isn't some new thing of making a sacrifice to the Lord obviously it's something they've been doing and what was the offering that they would make to the Lord a lamb so now he's looking for a lamb where's the lamb this is prior to the law of Moses yet it was still well known that a lamb sacrifice was given to the Lord now you say well how can that be well there's a few ways how that can be one is God's word is eternal okay God's word is eternal we don't know the extent of the knowledge that people who believed on the Lord and trusted in the Lord and worshiped the Lord we don't know the extent of the knowledge they had on things that are written in Scripture that we can look back on and things that were written down because while we're not dispensational things were different in the sense of the communication between God and man for example when God created Adam and Eve he would speak with them right like they could audibly hear the Lord and he would have this communication with the people that ends up changing and we know that you know Moses is regarded as the author of Genesis through Genesis number of Deuteronomy to the first five books of the Bible as the written record of all these events in history but it's not that well prior to then people just didn't know anything about God God was dealing with Abraham personally right and making himself known so we don't know to what extent and what knowledge was given to these people the word of God doesn't change but obviously he knew about lamb sacrifices just as much as we know even going back to Cain and Abel even though it's not written down Cain's sacrifice was not accepted but Abel's was and Abel going way back I mean going back to the beginning what did he do? He offered up an animal sacrifice to the Lord and that was acceptable whereas Cain brought the works of his own hands, the fruit of the ground as his offering and his sacrifice to the Lord and that was unacceptable and God let him know that and there's no way that God's just going to say well this isn't acceptable with me and you know without first having had let him know right what's the acceptable offering right it wouldn't make any sense to just get upset with someone without you never even told me that so I don't want to get too far off on that tangent but seeing this and understanding the reason why I'm bringing it up is because the Lamb of God is so central to what Jesus did when he came to this earth and who he was and the identity of Jesus is centrally tied into being the Lamb of God going all the way back to Genesis and going all the way through to Revelation which I had Revelation in my notes but I'm not going to get there for sake of time just because there's so much in these passages I want to go over that Jesus is referred to as a Lamb multiple times in Revelation as well but let's keep reading here so Isaac's looking for well where's the Lamb verse 8 says and Abraham said my son God will provide himself a Lamb for a burnt offering so they went both of them together and that's a powerful verse right there God will provide himself a Lamb for a burnt offering which is exactly what he did he provided himself as the Lamb for the burnt offering Jesus Christ is that Lamb of God who's being pictured here who's being represented but Abraham knew this this isn't complicated doctrine this isn't foreign or strange doctrine this is foundational fundamental doctrine verse number 9 and they came to the place which God had told him of and Abraham built an altar there and laid the wood in order and bound Isaac his son and laid him on the altar upon the wood and Abraham stretched forth his hand and took the knife to slay his son so he's ready to just act out this whole thing and Isaac is bound right he's tied up Jesus was bound when he went to when he was brought back and forth he's basically arrested and brought before Pilate definitely not free and led away to be executed and it says here so Abraham's ready he's got his knife ready to slay his son verse 11 you say now I know what's in your heart I know that where your faith is because you haven't even held back in an area where you know it may be very hard to try to follow through on your faith by doing this even though God's commanding you to just still being able to do it and sometimes you know when we don't understand the word of God just having that faith and following what God is commanding is you know what we just need to do the Bible says verse number 13 behind him a ram caught in a thicket by his horns and even that picture there of a ram getting caught in a thicket or in some thorns and some bramble is symbolic of that crown of thorns that Jesus Christ wore on his head you know when they were mocking him and they put that crown of thorns on his head and says and Abraham went and took the ram and offered him a burnt offering in the stead of his son and again this now this is that replacement this is what Jesus did for us if Isaac represents all of us deserving to be burnt right? deserving to be burnt with fire for our own sins well now we have hey look God's provided this sacrifice here it is now you don't have to burn this will take the place for you and that redemption and that salvation of Isaac in this situation is symbolic of us that Jesus Christ being that lamb hey you don't have to burn now because there's a sacrifice that's acceptable unto God and well pleasing unto God that's available and Jesus Christ embodies that as well that sacrifice now let's go to the next illustration in the scripture in Exodus chapter 12 of Jesus being the lamb of God so there's that story right there and both of these have to do with just being with a sacrifice right? and every sacrifice that you look at in the Old Testament there's a lot of different types of sacrifices and different rules on how the sacrifice would be performed they all have their own correlation or symbolism with Jesus Christ they all in their own way but the main sacrifice the big sacrifice the focal point of all the sacrifices in the Old Testament is the Passover lamb I mean by far I would say this is the biggest thing when people would you know you look back through the reign of the kings of Israel and of all the feasts of all the holy days of everything that they would do you know when they were getting right with God when Hezekiah is getting the people of Israel right with God when Joash is getting the people right with God what did they do? they held a great Passover that was the time that they chose to be like hey we're really gonna serve the Lord now we're gonna we're gonna get things right we're gonna hold this great Passover and everyone's gonna get right with God and we're gonna hold this great feast and this great commemoration of the that is kind of the focal point of all the sacrifices is this Passover lamb and we're gonna see here as we read through Exodus chapter 12 how like everything lines up just perfectly with Jesus Christ being that Passover lamb not and of course it's being called the lamb of God not to mention Jesus Christ being called our Passover we're gonna look at that verse as well Exodus chapter 12 look at verse number 1 the Bible reads and the Lord spake unto Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt saying this month shall be unto you the beginning of months it shall be the first month of the year to you now the Passover lamb as we're gonna see here is representative on a grand scale of the children of Israel being delivered out of bondage right so even just the whole notion and whole concept of having this Passover lamb it's at a time when God is delivering them out of Egypt it's the last plague right the very last plague on Egypt was the death of the first born son throughout all the land and the lamb was slain in order to put the blood on the door post which we'll get into more of that symbolism which is pretty obvious anyways on their house so that they wouldn't suffer death they wouldn't have that death angel come and kill the first born in that house because the blood covered the house and it was after that night that Pharaoh they were just expelled they were just like go and then they leave which finally is that release of the bondage of Egypt where they were slaves where they were oppressed now they have their liberty after that night of the Passover lamb so on a big scale Egypt represents the world and the bondage is what sin brings you into in the world you're in the bondage of sin but after you have Jesus after the lamb of God is applied to you to your heart to the door of your heart you receive liberty you receive freedom there's liberty in Christ there's freedom from that penalty of sin so being oppressed and being in slavery to that sin now you're free and now you're free to let God lead you as He will and that's the big scale and it's at that moment literally in history of that Passover lamb sacrifice being being made and because it's such a pivotal pivotal moment God changes our calendar and says this is the first month of the year to you like we're starting things now this is the first month the month of your deliverance so that every year now when you start off you're starting off with this deliverance with this freedom and of course institutes the commemoration by having the Passover lamb sacrifice and stuff and we're going to go through this now and look at all the details surrounding this sacrifice that gets added to or is part of the law that God gave to Moses now he's saying you're going to do this every year because I don't want anyone forgetting about this and how important this event is when God had that strong arm and brought the children of Israel out and made them free so verse 2 again says the month shall be unto you the beginning of months it shall be the first month of the year to you speak ye 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 a house and you can go on even on the days of this I've done this before but like the tenth day and then the fourteenth day we sacrifice and you can apply this to Jesus' entry into Jerusalem and everything that goes on in the gospel we're not going to do that we're not going to dive that deep today because I just want to cover all the symbolism but there's so much to this there's so much to this that can be applied even in everything that Jesus did right before his crucifixion that lines up perfectly with all of the details here so I'm going to try to hit as many as possible like I said there's more that I'm not going into just because it takes a while to do that bible study of lining up every single scripture but it's a great study to do on your own and just kind of get all the gospels together in order and figure out the days it's really really interesting so it's in the tenth day verse number three 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 a house and if the household be too little for the lamb let him and his neighbor next unto his house take it according to the number of the souls every man according to his eating shall make your count for the lamb and what's going on here is obviously if you have just like one person in a house or something they're not going to eat a whole lamb themselves so you're going to join up maybe with a couple of houses just according to what makes sense for the eating okay yeah we've got this lamb and it's going to provide for this many people so let's coordinate and eat together so we could have this lamb be sufficient for everyone and part of that is you know Jesus Christ is sufficient for everyone and there's you know there should be no lacking nothing left over it's exactly what you need which is exactly what God did with the man in the wilderness by the way which is also representative of Jesus being the bread of life and being that bread from heaven where no matter how much people gathered or didn't gather like everybody had enough completely satisfied 100% sufficient with what they needed and this is a similar thing where okay we've got two houses together one house together whatever and there's just enough for you to be able to be satisfied with that lamb um verse number five your lamb shall be without blemish obviously important so they were supposed to inspect the lamb there's other offerings where like the tithe it's just you don't exchange a good for a bad or a bad for a good he's just saying just give me the tenth give me the tenth give me the tenth you just go through you know your increase for the year or whatever and just you're not you don't have to evaluate it but the Passover lamb you do have to evaluate it has to pass muster it has to be the right sacrifice because this one is symbolic and representative of the lamb of God that's to come to take away the sins of the whole world so in order for this to be the best representation of the savior you need to look at it a little bit more closely than some of the other sacrifices that you might make this one has to be without blemish you can't have some lame lamb right it can't have some broken bone it can't have some other problem with it right it's got to be perfect there's got to be no blemish in it just as Jesus Christ was perfectly sinless there's no blemish in him he didn't have any problem so Jesus Christ was without sin 100% a male of the first year okay yeah we know Jesus Christ was a male ye shall take it out from the sheep or from the goats and ye shall keep it up until the 14th day of the same month and this is where I was talking about Jesus entering Jerusalem you know on the 10th day and then the 14th day sacrifices the Passover lamb and and that observation there making sure you've got a lamb without blemish and this is the excuse me the one the sacrifice it says in the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it in the evening the whole assembly of the congregation obviously they didn't all gather together to kill one lamb but it's saying the whole assembly of the congregation shall kill you know their lamb but I love the way that it's worded here because it sounds like it's one lamb on purpose because it's representative of all the people of Israel when he came unto his own and his own received him not the representation of all the children of Israel saying crucify him crucify him and that played out exactly as well the assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it in the evening verse 7 and they shall take of the blood and strike it on the two side posts and on the upper door post of the house wherein they shall eat it and again the blood is huge right Jesus Christ bled on the cross and not just that when they're doing the motions of putting the blood on the door post and on the over the head you're doing an emotion of a cross which is what Jesus was crucified on on a cross on the two side posts and in the upper door post of the house verse number 8 and they shall eat the flesh in that night roast with fire and unleavened bread and bitter with bitter herbs they shall eat it now I'm gonna go over the unleavened bread and bitter herbs a little bit later because there's another reference to that so I'm not gonna cover that right now but even just eating the flesh you know Jesus Christ said that he was the bread of God if you don't eat my flesh and drink my blood you have no life in you and we're not talking about transubstantiation we're talking about you know the symbolism there because he's the lamb of God so they make the sacrifice they're supposed to eat of it and it says verse 9 is also just extremely important and I don't understand people who don't believe the doctrine that Jesus Christ went to hell and suffered in hell I should say suffered in hell this makes no sense now up to this point is anyone having a problem seeing how just phenomenally Jesus Christ is representative of this you know the past over life is representative of Jesus Christ are we really lacking in any area is there any other sacrifice that gives just that doesn't just say there's a burnt offering but now adds this extra verbiage to just make really clear like it does in verse 9 eat not of it raw nor sod it all with water but roast with fire it said in the previous verse roast with fire but now it's just making sure that you understand hey look do not eat it raw do not sod it with water but it has to be roast with fire his head with his legs and with the hands they're of it has to be roast with fire no other sacrifice goes into this much concern of making sure you understand this if you're going to eat this you cannot eat it raw you can't there cannot be water used to boil it or anything it has to be roast with fire why is that I wonder why that is why is it so important that we understand that the lamb sacrifices roast with fire and the roasting with fire is after the shedding of blood Jesus Christ shed his blood on the cross of course he did now that's critical for our salvation because it's the blood that washes us from our sins amen but in order for this Passover lamb to be acceptable you had to follow everything about this sacrifice and with Jesus Christ being offered being crucified on the cross guess what every aspect of that had to be done appropriately and accurately as well all the way up to the point where Jesus sprinkled his blood on the mercy seat in heaven which I wholeheartedly believe he did you know so people say oh what about when he said it is finished it is finished of course he said that but just because he said it is finished you can't just go and apply the meaning and say well you're wrong because he said it is finished well what is finished? it so I'm going to say it means something you're going to say it means something else prove it to me that it means that he didn't suffer in hell prove that to me that it was finished I say it means his earthly ministry was finished because every prophecy of the scripture that he had any control over at all by his actions and by his words and everything that he said and everything that he did all the way up to the point where he gave up the ghost he completed in scripture that whole portion of his earthly ministry was finished and that's why he gave up the ghost it makes sense to me that's not some heretical teaching oh man I can't believe you would say that's what he means when he says it is finished whereas other people say well no everything that had to happen for your salvation happened and that's why he said it is finished well really because did he rise again from the dead yet? did the resurrection even happen? Amen preach it that's right or the people that want to say well there's only one verse that says anything where you could possibly think that Jesus Christ suffered in hell maybe two yeah how about Exodus 12 how about the fact that Jesus Christ is the Passover lamb how about the fact that verse number 8 really goes into detail making sure that you don't do anything other than roast it with fire why is that so important? why? why would that be so important? it's not because your sin well your sin is punished by hell so you have to roast the lamb but it's the lamb that's getting roasted with fire proves my point anyway I'm going to move on from that verse number 10 and you shall let nothing of it remain until the morning and that which remaineth of it until the morning look at this you shall burn with fire you need to eat it eating the lamb and whatever is not eaten the rest of it has to be burnt with fire all of it so that there's nothing left verse 11 and thus shall ye eat it with your loins girded and your shoes on your feet and your staff in your hand and you shall eat it in haste it is the Lord's Passover for I will pass through the land of Egypt this night and will smite all the firstborn in the land of Egypt both man and beast and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment I am the Lord and the blood shall be to you for a token upon the houses where ye 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 again, that important reference to the blood of Christ, the blood of the lamb covering you protecting you, saving you from that destruction the roasting needed to happen because that's the way that God planned it, all of that had to happen just as much as, you know, you could have roast the lamb with fire but if you didn't put the blood over your doorpost, guess what? It wasn't acceptable the blood shall be for you 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, verse 14 and this day shall be unto you for memorial and you shall keep it a feast to the Lord throughout your generations you shall keep it a feast by an ordinance forever which by the way, I'll probably go into this a little bit when it gets a little bit closer to Easter and we observe the Lord's Supper but the Lord's Supper is just a continuation a slight change because we're not offering animal sacrifices anymore because that would be blasphemous to do that when Jesus Christ is the lamb that's slain and the sacrifice was used to let people know of the coming one, of the coming lamb of God that's going to take away the sins of the world but once that's happened, now we no longer do that lamb sacrifice however, the unleavened bread like Jesus then partook of with the wine with his disciples at the Last Supper which also happened at Passover demonstrates the shift or the change after the death of the lamb finally the once and for all that final sacrifice being made now to commemorate that death afterwards so prior to the death, we showed the coming of the death of the lamb by offering up that lamb sacrifice under the Levitical priesthood but now that Jesus Christ has done that the commemoration of what he did is still important it's still extremely important I mean it's important back then, it's important now you know, when we practice holding communion with the Lord, when we partake of the body and blood of Christ they're both representative of the same thing of that shed blood, of the sacrifice that was made, it's just how do we observe that now which is why when we and just for those of you that may not know, that's why when we observe the Lord's Supper, it's the Wednesday before Easter which, you know, Easter symbolizes, is represented with the resurrection of Jesus Christ, that's what we're celebrating then and that Wednesday would be the closest day that we can get to of when Jesus would have been holding that Last Supper, the Passover with his disciples so that's what we're doing there and again, I'll probably preach a little bit more in depth on that when it comes closer to that time but this all pertains to the same thing, so let's see okay, I finished Exodus chapter 12, turn if you would to Numbers Numbers chapter 9 there's a there's a few more things I just want to dig into here before we finish that's the meat of the Passover right there, all the ordinances there regarding the Passover offering so that salvation that the children of God received as a result of the Passover lamb being slain and the blood being applied, that's what Jesus did for us and you need to apply the blood of Jesus to you in order to be, to have your sins remitted in order for the destroyer not to destroy you when you breathe your last breath you'll see that blood applied to your account and Passover no destruction for you Numbers chapter 9 verse number 10 the Bible reads, speak unto the children of Israel saying if any man of you or of your posterity shall be unclean by reason of a dead body or be in a journey afar off yet he shall keep the Passover unto the Lord, so in this, we're getting just a few more details now that wasn't included in Exodus because like this question came up well what do we do, because the other sacrifices you had to be clean in order to be part of, partake in those sacrifices you had to be clean and there's different things that can make a person unclean and the Bible, God teaches hey, if you're unclean, no you can't do that sacrifice, you can't have, you can't participate in this because you're unclean and even if a relative, a loved one dies and you handle that person because you have to I mean they died and you're gonna move them, you're gonna do something with them, with their body you're unclean until the evening and all the other sacrifices no, you can't do that but what's interesting about the Passover is that the focus on this isn't on you at all, it's all on the lamb so all the details are on the lamb has to be without blemish, the lamb has to be perfect, the lamb is the one that you're inspecting and in this situation because it's such an important sacrifice, God says well even if you're unclean for these reasons you can still partake and if you think about it, you know, symbolically we're all unclean we need that Passover lamb we need to be able to partake in that offering, we need to be able to partake in that even though we're unclean we need it and in this particular offering God allows this, it says if any man of you, verse 10 again, or of your posterity shall be unclean by reason of a dead body or be in a journey afar off, yet he shall keep the Passover unto the Lord, the 14th day of the second month at even, they shall keep it and eat it with unleavened bread and bitter herbs they shall leave none of it unto the morning, nor break any bone of it, and again we didn't see that we saw without blemish but here even more specifically saying not break a bone which when you read the account of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, he didn't break none of his bones were broken they might have been out of joint but none of them were broken, and they even broke the legs of the other two malefactors that were crucified with him but when they came to Jesus they pierced his side, they didn't break a bone because he needed to fulfill this being the lamb of God and God knew that so I'm sure God had something to do with them not doing that to him and realizing that he was, because the other two guys I don't think were dead yet which is why they did that too, they're trying to kind of speed things up, they couldn't leave them just hanging up on the cross so they're trying to get that done and with Jesus oh we don't have to do this because he's already dead so they just kind of made sure when they pierced him and that was the case so it says here for the Passover lamb not to break any bone of it according to all the ordinances of the Passover they shall keep it but the man that is clean and is not in a journey and forbereth to keep the Passover, it's not always saying you know what this person has no excuse they're here, they're not off on a journey they're clean, everything's fine if they don't keep the Passover it says even the same soul shall be cut off from among his people because he brought not the offering of the Lord in his appointed season that man shall bear his sin so you don't want to partake in having the blood of the lamb applied to you, you're going to bear your own sin good luck with that verse 14 and I love this verse too and if a stranger shall sojourn among you and will keep the Passover unto the Lord, it says will keep, it means they want to keep the Passover unto the Lord, a stranger a foreigner is what that means some foreigner comes in to the land of Israel and they want to keep the Passover according to the ordinance of the Passover and according to the manner thereof so shall he do, you should have one ordinance both for the stranger and for him that was born in the land, this isn't just for the genealogy of the Jews it's for anyone who wants to, yea whosoever will let him come and drink of the water of life freely whosoever will can have the Passover lamb applied to them I mean this is going back to the book of Numbers God's not a racist God wants people of all nations to be saved and to come to him the Passover lamb Jesus Christ shed his blood for all nations for everybody to be able to be saved and come to him Deuteronomy 16 we're almost done this is the part that I was talking about where I said we were going to cover the unleavened bread aspect of the offering because there's a little bit more detail here Deuteronomy 16 now just in general you'll notice when you're reading the Bible and there's references to leaven, leaven is symbolic of sin in the scripture and how a little leaven leavens a whole lump and that sin will just kind of spread if you don't take care of it but which is also the case here but we're also going to see just more specifically the Bible telling us more of what it means which is why I wanted to turn to Deuteronomy 16 instead of inferring more of what the unleavened bread means, this tells us more specifically exactly what it's for so in verse number 3 the Bible says thou shalt eat no leavened bread with it seven days shalt thou eat unleavened bread therewith even the bread of affliction for thou camest forth out of the land of Egypt in haste that thou mayest remember the day when thou camest forth out of the land of Egypt all the days of thy life so in the Passover sacrifice that unleavened bread that they would have to eat for those seven days it was also to demonstrate this is bread of affliction they didn't have time to leaven and do all this other stuff with the bread they had to just be ready to go and when the time was come they had to just go and do it the remembrance is of that that call to just go to just be ready and go and do and not and not have the just be ready, be prepared be prepared against the day of the Lord so it's called the bread of affliction here verse number four let's continue reading here shall choose to place his name in there thou shalt sacrifice the Passover at even, at the going down of the sun, at the season that thou camest forth out of Egypt so one last point here in these verses is that the place also matters and this is showing us Jesus Christ was sacrificed outside of the gates of the city so when he was crucified it wasn't in the city so here it says that thou mayest not sacrifice the Passover within any of thy gates showing that his crucifixion was going to take place outside of the gates of the city and it's going to be at the place which the Lord thy God shall choose to place his name in all of these things were important parts of the sacrifice so if you go to 1 Corinthians 5 last place you're going to look 1 Corinthians chapter 5 all of these things were important, all of these details are representative and like I said, I didn't cover all of them, there's no way I could cover all of them especially in a short time, we're already at about an hour into the sermon there's so much here with the symbolism of Jesus Christ being that Lamb of God in 1 Corinthians 5 verse 7 the Bible reads purge out therefore the old leaven that ye may be a new lump as ye are unleavened for even Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us, now in the context here of 1 Corinthians 5 it's talking about fornication and sin so this is what I was talking about again with this leaven obviously the unleavened bread is representative of the body of Christ because he is sinless but the Bible is teaching us here purge out that old leaven because you are unleavened because you've been saved as that new man has no sin you're born again you're a creation of God so purge out that old leaven don't walk in that anymore because Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us verse 8 therefore let us keep the feast not with old leaven neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth and basically it's saying, you know what, put on the new man we're going to hold this feast we're going to commemorate the Lord Jesus Christ let's put on that new man forget that old sin nature forget that old man leave him sacrificed at the door and go forth now walking in newness of life and you know what, you might have to eat that bread of affliction you might not have all the same luxuries or whatever that you might have had back in Egypt the leeks and the onions and the garlic and the cucumbers and the melons remember all that, that the children of Israel were lusting after when they were out in the wilderness you might just have to eat the bread of affliction but you know what, walk in that newness and not in that old leaven and definitely not the old leaven of malice and wickedness, put those things off and walk with the bread of sincerity and truth, that's pure the unleavened bread is pure sincerity, truth looking to Christ our Passover so there's so much to the Lamb of God like I said, those are only two places you can look in Revelation you can look at other references to Jesus Christ being the Lamb of God but it's central to who Jesus was coming to this earth to be that Lamb sacrifice in order to make that atonement for our sins and to pay the price and you can look at every single aspect and detail of that and how the Lamb of the Old Testament represents Jesus is representative of those Lambs Spot Rides have a word of prayer Dear Heavenly Father, Lord, we thank you so much for the sacrifice that you made for us for loving us enough to allow for your Son to be sacrificed the Lamb of God to take away the sin of the world Lord, help us to point other people to Jesus, to help us to point other people to that Lamb of God that we would and that we would all maintain that focus on the Lamb and not get caught up in any one person or personality or anything, Lord, but that we would all stay focused on you and that we could all serve you together here in unison, in the unison of Spirit and in unison as a church body Lord, with Christ at our head looking to serve Him and God we ask for your blessing and we thank you for loving us enough for that great sacrifice you made, Lord, in Jesus' name we pray, Amen Alright, brother Peter please lead us in our last song before dismissed for the evening Alright church if you'd open up to song 256 again song 256 look to the Lamb of God song 256 on the first if you from sin are longing to be free look to the Lamb of God He to me unite on Calvary look to the Lamb of God look to the Lamb of God look to the Lamb of God for He alone is able to save you look to the Lamb of God when sin is aint intense doubt and fear assail look to the Lamb of God you and your strength shall over all prevail look to the Lamb of God look to the Lamb of God look to the Lamb of God for He alone is able to save you look to the Lamb of God are you aware does the way seem long look to the Lamb of God His love will cheer and fill your heart with song look to the Lamb of God look to the Lamb of God look to the Lamb of God for He alone is able to save you look to the Lamb of God fear not with shadows on your Catholic wall look to the Lamb of God in joy or sorrow Christ is all in all look to the Lamb of God look to the Lamb of God look to the Lamb of God for He alone is able to save you look to the Lamb of God great singing, thank you so much for coming, you guys are dismissed thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you