The Beginning Of Months

Part Two-The Lamb's Refreshment

Passover Message 2005

        When sinners put their trust in Jesus blood, they begin a whole new life. The day of our salvation was the first day of a new year and a new life. Salvation is not a reformation of the old man, it is a rendering powerless of the sin nature through the power of the Cross of Christ. The powers of darkness are broken and the justice of God satisfied. The day of Israel’s exodus out of Egypt stands in type a picture of our glorious salvation. It marked a new beginning, a new year for them. In fact, they changed their calendar; the month they left Egypt became the first month of the New Year. Such is the message of the Passover season. Such is the message of eternity.

By Chris McDonald

TEXT: Exodus 12:1-10  - And the Lord spoke unto Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying, [2] This month shall be unto you the beginning of months: it shall be the first month of the year to you.  [3] 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 an house: [4] 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. [5] Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year: ye shall take it out from the sheep, or from the goats: [6] And ye shall keep it up until the fourteenth day of the same month: and the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it in the evening. [7] And they shall take of the blood, and strike it on the two side posts and on the upper door post of the houses, wherein they shall eat it. [8] And they shall eat the flesh in that night, roast with fire, and unleavened bread; and with bitter herbs they shall eat it. [9] Eat not of it raw, nor sodden at all with water, but roast with fire; his head with his legs, and with the purtenance thereof. [10] And ye shall let nothing of it remain until the morning; and that which remaineth of it until the morning ye shall burn with fire.
 

The Lamb’s Refreshment

            The night of the Passover also brought refreshment from the lamb to the Israelites. Being saved by its blood, the believing households stood and FED upon the Lamb! They never ate as they ate that night. Those who spiritually understood the symbol must have partaken of every morsel with a mysterious awe mingled with such joy that even angels watched and envied. I can’t help but feel that all of heaven wept at some point in this celebration because heaven KNEW that this night was a foreshadowing of things to come in God’s eternal plan for man. Only the FUTURE Passover would involve the darling of heaven – the Lord Jesus – who would take the place of the Passover Lamb Israel partook of that night.

            Along with the joy, I’m sure there was also a seriousness around the table as they stood there eating in haste. Every now and then I’m sure they were startled by the shrieks that rose from the Egyptian houses because of the slain of the Lord. It was a solemn feast, a meal of mingled hope and mystery.

            As Israel ate the entire Passover Lamb, so too must be partake of ALL of Christ! We must daily FEED upon HIM, not wanting or settling for a morsel less than His full revelation and power in our lives. As they eat in haste with a staff in their hands, so too today we eat in haste knowing that our sojourn here in Egypt is but for a moment and at any time the trump of God may sound and we will be leaving.

Exodus 12:11

    And thus shall ye eat it; with your loins girded, your shoes on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and ye shall eat it in haste: it is the Lord's Passover.

1 Thes. 4:13-18

    But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. [14] For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. [15] For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. [16] For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: [17] Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. [18] Wherefore comfort one another with these words.

            In another sense we come to the table and recline at ease with our heads on His bosom, reposing in His love as Christ becomes the daily bread of our spirits.

            The Lamb was to be roasted with fire. The best refreshment to a troubled heart is the Suffering Savior, the Lamb roasted in fire.

Exodus 12:8

    And they shall eat the flesh in that night, roast with fire, and unleavened bread; and with bitter herbs they shall eat it.

            A poor sinner under the conviction of sin needs the Passover experience of the Lamb ROASTED IN FIRE. The fire of Holy Spirit conviction, which is missing in so many churches today, needs to bring a sinful race back to God. The sinner does not need food that comforts, yet he needs to be made aware of his sin.

            As Charles Spurgeon said so long ago, the chief relish about our Lord Jesus to a penitent sinner is His sin-bearing and His agonies. We need the suffering Savior, the Christ of Gethsemane, the Christ of Golgotha and Calvary, Christ shedding his blood in the sinner’s stead and bearing for us the fire of God’s wrath. Nothing short of this will suffice to be food for a hungry heart. Without this, and you starve child of God. We need the lamb to be ROASTED in the fire of the Spirit to bring proper nourishment to our spiritual lives! To the sinner man, it’s conviction. To the believer, it’s the nourishment that keeps us on the path of life.

       A poor sinner under conviction of sin goes to a place of worship, and he hears Christ preached as an example. This may be useful to the saint, but it is little help to the poor sinner. He cries, “That is true, but it condemns rather than comforts me.” It is not food for him; he wants the Lamb roasted in fire, Christ his substitute, Christ suffering in his place and stead.

        We hear a great deal about the beauty of Christ’s moral character, and assuredly our blessed Lord deserves to be highly exalted for His character, but that is not the aspect under which He is food to a soul conscious of sin. The chief relish about our Lord Jesus to a penitent sinner is His sin-bearing and His agonies. We need the suffering Savior, the Christ of Gethsemane, the Christ of Golgotha and Calvary, Christ shedding His blood in the sinner’s stead and bearing for us the fire of God’s wrath. Nothing short of this will suffice to be food for a hungry heart. Withhold this, and you starve the child of God.

        The Israelites were not to eat any of the lamb raw (v. 9). Alas! There are some who try to do this with Christ, for they preach a half-atoning sacrifice. They try to make His person and His character to be food for their souls, but they have small liking for His passion. They cast His atonement in to the background or represent it as an ineffective atonement that does not rescue any soul. What is this but to devour a raw Christ? It is the taste of the "new" gospel today that denigrates the Cross of Christ and keeps the atonement of Christ as a side issue, not the main one!

        Those who seek to embrace the truth of Jesus need never touch their half-roasted lamb; let us have nothing to do with their half substitution, their half-redemption. No, no. Give me a Savior who has borne all my sins in His own body (1 Pet. 2:24) and so has been roasted in fire to the full. “It is finished!” (John 19:30) is the most charming note in all of Calvary’s music. “It is finished!” The fire has passed upon the Lamb. He has borne the whole of the wrath that was due to His people. This is the royal dish of the feast of love.

        There is a multitude of teachers who want to have the Lamb boiled with water, though the Scripture says, “Do not eat it raw, nor boiled at all with water” (Exod. 12:9). I have heard it said that a great number of sermons are about Christ and the Gospel yet neither Christ nor His Gospel are preached in them. If so, the preachers present the Lamb boiled in the water of their own thoughts, speculations, and notions.

        Now, the harm in this boiling process is that the water takes away a good deal from the meat. Likewise, philosophical discourses on the Lord Jesus take away much of the essence and virtue of His person, offices, work, and glory. The real juice and vital nutrients of His glorious Word are carried off by interpretations that do not explain, but explain away. How many boil away the soul of the Gospel by their carnal wisdom!

         What is worse still, when meat is boiled, not only does the meat get into the water, but the water gets into the meat. What truth these gospel-boilers do hand out is boiled with error, and you receive from them dishes made up partly of God’s truth and partly of men’s imaginings. We hear in some measure solid Gospel and in larger measure mere watery reasoning. When certain preachers preach atonement, it is not pure and simple substitution; one hardly knows what it is. Their atonement is not the vicarious sacrifice, but a performance of a long list of things. They have a theory that is like the remainders of meat after days of boiling, all strings and fibers.

         People use all kinds of schemes to try to extract the marrow and fatness from the grand, soul-satisfying doctrine of substitution, which to my mind is the choicest truth that can ever be brought forth for the food of souls. I cannot figure out why so many preachers are afraid of the shedding of blood for the remission of sin (Heb 9:22). Why do they have to stew down the most important of all the truths of revelation? As the type could be correct only when the lamb was roasted with fire, so the Gospel is not truly presented unless we describe our Lord Jesus in His sufferings in the place of sinners. He was absolutely and literally a substitution for them. When it comes to the Gospel, I will allow no dilution: it is substitution. He bore our sins (1 Pet. 2:24). He was made sin for us (2 Cor. 5:21). “The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed” (Isa. 53:5). We must have no mystifying of this plain truth. It must not be “boiled at all with water” (Exod. 12:9). We must have Christ in His sufferings, fresh from the fire.

The Lamb The Israelites Were To Eat; The Lamb We Must Eat Today!

        Now, this is the lamb the Israelites were to eat, and they were to eat all of it. Not a morsel was to be left (Exod. 12:10). Oh, that we would never cut and divide Christ so as to choose one part of Him and leave another! Let not a bone of Him be broken (v. 46), but let us take the whole Christ, up to the full measure of our capacity. Prophet, Priest, and King; Christ divine and Christ human; Christ loving and living, Christ dying, Christ risen, Christ ascended, Christ coming again; Christ triumphant over all His foes - the whole Lord Jesus Christ is ours. We must not reject a single morsel of what is revealed concerning Him, but we must feed on it all as we are able.

        That night Israel had to feed on the lamb there and then. They could not save a portion for the next day; they had to consume it all one way or another (v. 10). Oh, my friend, we need a whole Christ at this very moment. Let us receive Him in His entirety. Oh, for a splendid appetite and good digestion to receive into my inmost soul the Lord Christ just as I find Him.

        May you and I never think lightly of our Lord in any of His offices or aspects. All that you now know and all that you can find out concerning Christ, you should now believe, appreciate, feed on, and rejoice in. Make the most of all that is in the Word concerning you Lord. Let Him enter into you being to become part and parcel of yourself. If you do this, the day in which you feed on Jesus will be the first day of you life, its day of days, the day from which you date all that follows. If once you have fed upon Christ Jesus, you will never forget it in time or in eternity. Refreshment from the lamb was the second event that was celebrated in each succeeding Passover. It is a requirement for us in this generation as well. He is our source of ALL life and peace as well as godliness.

Purification From Leaven

            The third event was the purification of their houses from the leaven. (See Exodus 12:15.) This process was to go side by side with the sprinkling of the blood and the eating of the lamb. They were told that they must not eat leaven for seven days, for whoever ate leaven would be “cut off from Israel” (v. 15). This purification was deeply important, for it is put in equal position with the sprinkling of the blood. The two could not be separated. Anyone who divided the two faced the pain and penalty of being divided from the congregation of Israel.

        Now, it is always a pity to preach justification by faith in a way that makes sanctification a part of justification. But it is also a horrible error to preach justification in a way that denies the absolute necessity of sanctification. The two are joined together by the Lord. There must be the eating of the lamb and the sprinkling of the blood, and there must be the purging out of the old leaven as well. Carefully, the Jews looked into every closet, corner, drawer, and cupboard to sweep out every crump of stale bread. If they had any bread, even if it was new and they intended to eat it, they had to get rid of it, for there could not a particle of leaven in the same house with the lamb.

        When you and I first came to Christ, what a sweeping out there was of leaven! I know I was fully delivered from the “leaven of the Pharisees” (Luke 12:1), for all trust in my own good works went, even the last crumb of it. All confidences in rites and ceremonies went, too. I do not have a crust left of these sour corrupt confidences at the present moment, and I wish never to taste that old leaven again. Some people are always chewing on that leaven, glorying in their own prayers and giving and ceremonies; but when Christ comes in, this leaven all goes out. The “leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy” (v. 1), must be cleared out. “Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit” (Ps. 32:1-2).

         Guile must go, or guilt will not go. The Lord sweeps the cunning, the craftiness, and the deceit out of His people. He makes His people true before His face. Thy wish that they were as clear of every sin as they are from insincerity. They once tried to dwell before the Lord with double-dealing, pretending to be what they were not. But as soon as they ate of Christ and the blood was sprinkled, then they humbled themselves in truth and laid bare their sinfulness. They stood before God in complete openness.

        Christ has not saved the man who still trusts in falsehood. You cannot feed on Christ and at the same time hold love of sin or vain confidence in yourself. Self and sin must go. But, oh, what a day it is when the old leaven is thrown out. We will never forget it! That month is the beginning of months, the first month of the year to us, when the Spirit of truth purges out the spirit of falsehood.

A Mighty Deliverance

            We come now to our fourth point about the Passover. On the Passover night there came, as the result of these other things, a wonderful, glorious, and mighty deliverance. That night every Israelite was promised immediate emancipation, and as soon as the morning dawned, he left his house and Egypt, too. He left the brick kilns forever, he washed the brick earth from his hands for the last time, and he left the yoke he used to carry when he worked amid the clay. He looked at the Egyptian taskmaster, remembered being struck often by him with a stick, and rejoiced that he would never be beaten again, for the taskmaster was at his feet begging him to leave lest all Egypt should die. Oh, what joy!

        They marched out with their unleavened bread on their backs (Exod. 12:34), for they still had some days in which they were to eat it, and I think before the seventh day of unleavened bread was over (Exod. 13:6-7), they had reached the Red Sea. Still eating unleavened bread, they went into the depths of the Red Sea. Still with no flavor of leaven in their mouths, they stood on its shore to sing to the Lord the great hallelujah. God had “triumphed gloriously! The horse and its rider He has thrown in the sea!” (Exod. 15:1).

        Do you recollect when the Lord purged you from love of sin and trust in self, when He brought you completely out and set you free, and when He said, “Go on to the promised rest; go on the Canaan”? Do you remember when you saw your sins drowned forever, never to rise in judgment against you? Not merely was you destruction prevented, not merely was your soul fed with the finest food, not merely was your heart and your house cleansed of hypocrisy, but you, yourself, were delivered and emancipated, the Lord’s free men! Oh, if you remember, I am sure you will acknowledge the wisdom of the Lord’s decree: “This month shall be your beginning of months; it shall be the first month of the year to you.”

Christ Our Passover

            Christ our Passover recurs among us today. There are three ways: the salvation of ourselves, our families, and our world. The first recurrence is, of course, the personal salvation of each one of us. All of Exodus 12 was transacted in your heart and mine when we first knew the Lord.

            Moses wrote thousands of years ago about something that happened, but the substance of it has happened to thousands who are trusting in the Lord. Can we not read this story in Exodus and say, “Yes, it is so even now”? Every word of it is true every detail of it, even to the eating of the bitter herbs (Exod. 12:8). This Passover record is not a story of olden times alone; it is the record of your life and mine. Thus, by each person who is saved, the Passover Feast is kept.

1 Cor. 5:7-9
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: [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. [9] I wrote unto you in an epistle not to company with fornicators:

            In a certain sense, the Passover occurs again when a man’s family is saved. Remember, the Passover was a family business. The father and mother were present when the lamb was slain. The oldest son probably helped to bring the lamb to the slaughter; another held the knife; a third held the basin; the little boy fetched the bunch of hyssop; and they all united in the sacrifice. They all saw the father strike the lintel and the doorposts, and they all ate of the lamb that night. Everyone who was in the house, all who were part of the family, partook of the meal. They were all protected by the blood, they were all refreshed by the feast, and they all started out the next morning to go to Canaan.

         A family begins to live in the highest sense when as a family, without exception, it has all been redeemed, all sprinkled with the blood, all made to feed on Jesus, all purged from sin, and all freed to leave the domains of sin, headed for the kingdom. What joy! “I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth” (3 John 1:4).  Engrave it on marble and set it up forever! This household is saved, and the day of its salvation is the beginning of its spiritual history.

3 John 1:4
I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth.
 

The Salvation of Our World

          Passover was not only a family ordinance, but it was for all the tribes of Israel. There were many families, but in every house the Passover lamb was sacrificed. Oh, that we might live to see every house in our communities sprinkled with the redeeming blood! Oh, that we might live to see the whole nation of America feasting spiritually upon Christ, where there can be no excess. Oh, what a beginning of years it would be for our country! What a paradise it would be! If it were so in any country, what a day to be remembered! Mark a nation’s annals from its evangelization. Begin the chronicle of a people from the day when they bow at the feet of Jesus.

            There will come a day to this poor earth when Jesus will reign over all of it (Rev. 11:15). It may be a long time yet, but the day will come when Christ will have “dominion...from sea to sea” (Ps. 72:8). The nations that are called Christian, although they so little deserve the title, already date their chronology from the birth of Christ.

Rev. 11:15
And the seventh angel sounded; and there were great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever.

Psalm 72:8
He shall have dominion also from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth.

        This is a sort of faint foreshadowing of the way in which people will one day date all things from the reign of Jesus. His kingdom will come. God has decreed His triumph, and on the wings of time it hastens. When He comes, that month will be the beginning of months to us.

The Most Honorable Day

            Primarily, the day in which we first knew the Savior as the Passover Lamb should always be the most honorable day that has ever dawned upon us. The Israelites place the month Abib as the first month because it was the month of the Passover. The date we came to know the Lord is the premier day, the noblest hour we have ever known. It eclipses our natural birthday, for then we were born in sin, then we were “born to trouble, as the sparks fly upward” (Job 5:7). But now we are born into spiritual life, born to eternal bliss.

Job 5:7
Yet man is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward.
 

            Spurgeon wrote of this great salvation experience this way:

"Our salvation day eclipses our marriage day, for union to Christ will bring us greater joy then the happiest of marriage bonds. If we have ever received the honors of the State, gained distinction in learning, attained a position in society, or acquired great wealth, all these are but dim, cloudy, foggy days compared with this “morning without clouds” (2 Sam. 23:4). On that day, you sun rose, never to go down again. The die was cast. Your destiny for glory was openly declared."

            I entreat you never to degrade that blessed day in your thoughts by thinking more of any pleasure, honor, or advancement than you do of the blessing of salvation by the blood of Jesus. I am afraid that some of you are striving and struggling after other distinctions, and you think that if you could only reach a certain event you would be satisfied. Is your salvation not worth vastly more than this? You feel that you would be set for life if a certain matter turned out right. Friend, you were set for life when you were made anew in Christ Jesus. You received your inheritance when you came to Christ. You were promoted when He invited you into His friendship. You gained all that you need when you found Christ. A saint of old said, “He is all my salvation, and all my desire.”

            If you should be elected to some high position in the government, do not think that the event would overshadow your conversion. Think of your salvation as the Lord thinks of it, for He says, “Since you were precious in My sight, You have been honored, and I have loved you” (Isa. 43:4). Honor belongs to those who believe in Jesus. In Jesus you boast and glory, and so you should. The mark of blood is a believer’s chief adornment and decoration, and his being cleansed and set free by grace is his noblest distinction. Glory in grace and in nothing else. Prize the work of grace beyond all the treasures of Egypt.

Isaiah 43:4
Since thou wast precious in my sight, thou hast been honorable, and I have loved thee: therefore will I give men for thee, and people for thy life.
 

The Beginning of Life

            The date of our salvation is to be regarded as the beginning of life. The Israelites reckoned that all their former existence as a nation had been death. The brick kilns of Egypt, the sitting around pots of meat, the mixing of idolaters, the hearing of a language they did not understand - all Egyptian life they considered to be death, and the month that ended it was to them the beginning of months. On the other hand, they looked on all that followed their Exodus as life. The Passover was the beginning, and only the beginning. A beginning implies that something is to follow.

            Now then, Christians, whenever we speak of our existence before conversion, always do it with shamefacedness, as one risen from the dead might speak of the cemetery and the worm of corruption. I feel grieved when people stand up and talk about what they used to do before they were converted as an old sailor talks of his voyages and storms. No, no! Be ashamed for your “former lusts, as in your ignorance” (1 Pet. 1:14). If you must speak of them to the praise and glory of Christ, speak with tears and sighs and bated breath. Death, rottenness, and corruption are all most fitly left in silence; or if they demand a voice, let it be as solemn and mournful as a funeral service. Tell about your sinful past in a way that will show that you wish it had never happened. Let your conversion be the burial of the old existence. (See 2 Corinthians 5:17.) As for what follows, take care that you make it real life, worthy of the grace that has saved you.

1 Peter 1:14
As obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to the former lusts in your ignorance:

2 Cor. 5:17
Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.
 

            Suppose these Israelites had loitered in Egypt. Suppose one of them had said, “Well, I did not finish that batch of bricks. I cannot leave just yet. I would like to see them thoroughly baked and prepared for the pyramid.” What a foolish man he would have been! No, they left the bricks and the clay and the stuff behind; they left right away and let Egypt take care of itself.

            Now, child of God, leave the ways of sin with determination. Leave the world; leave its pleasures; leave its cares; and cleave to Jesus and His leadership. You are now the Lord’s free man. Will the Lamb be slain and mean nothing? Will the blood be sprinkled for nothing? Will the leavened bread be purged out in vain? Will the Red Sea be crossed, and the Egyptians drowned, and you remain a slave? The thought is abhorrent. That was the wrongdoing of the Israelites: they still had a craving for the leeks and garlic of Egypt (Num. 11:5). These strong-smelling things had scented their garments, and it is hard to get such vile odors out of one’s clothes. Alas, the Egyptian garlic clings to us, and its smell is not always so abominable to us as it ought to be.

Numbers 11:5
We remember the fish, which we did eat in Egypt freely; the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlick:

            Besides, they pined for fish that they ate in plenty in Egypt (v. 5), muddy fish though it was. There were better fisheries for them in Jordan and Gennesaret and the Great Sea if they had gone ahead. Sweeter herbs were on Canaan’s hills than ever grew in Egypt’s mire. Because of this evil lusting, they were kept dodging about for forty years in the wilderness (Num. 32:13). They might have marched into Canaan in forty days had it not been for that stinking garlic of theirs. Their Egyptian habits and memories held them back. Oh, that God would cut us completely free and enable us to forget those “things of which [we] are now ashamed” (Rom. 6:21)!

Numbers 32:13
And the Lord's anger was kindled against Israel, and he made them wander in the wilderness forty years, until all the generation, that had done evil in the sight of the Lord, was consumed.

Romans 6:21
What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed? for the end of those things is death.

Setting All Things Right

            Inasmuch as the Passover became the beginning of the year to Israel, it set all things right. I told you that the year had formerly begun in autumn, according to most traditions. Was this really the best season to start the year? Was autumn the best season in which to begin life, with winter ahead and everything declining? With the institution of the Passover, the year was made to begin in what is our spring. When could the year begin more fitly than in the springtime of early May? It seems to me that the year actually does begin in spring. I do not see that the year naturally begins in winter, though it does so arbitrarily. In the middle of winter, the year as yet lies dead. When the birds sing and the flowers rise from their beds of earth, then the year begins.

            It was good for the Israelites to have the Feast of Firstfruits in the month Abib. Hence, they could bring the first ears to the Lord and not wait until they were ripe before they blessed the Giver of all good. We ought to be grateful for green mercies and not wait until everything comes to ripeness.

            In some parts of the East there is fruit all year round, and why not in Eden? In my delightful country England, which bears a very close resemblance to the East, one tree or another bears fruit every month all year round. So if Adam had been created in the month of April, there would have been food for him, followed by a succession of fruits that would have supplied all his wants. Then he would have had summer before him with all its ripening beauties. This is a more paradisiacal outlook than winter.

            It is right that the year should begin with the firstfruits, and I am sure it is quite right that the year should begin for you and me when we come to Christ and receive the “firstfruits of the Spirit” (Rom. 8:23).

Romans 8:23
And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.

        Everything is in disarray until a man knows Christ. Everything is disorderly and bottom upwards until the Gospel comes and turns everything upside down, and then right side is up again. Man is all wrong until the Gospel puts him all right. Though grace is above nature, it is not contrary to nature; rather, it restores true nature. Our nature is never so truly the nature of a man as when it is no longer man’s sinful nature. We truly become men, such as God meant men to be, when we cease to be the kind of men that sin has made men to be.

            Since our life begins at our spiritual Passover and at our feeding upon Christ, we ought to always regard our conversion as a festival and remember it with praise. Whenever we look back on it, the memory of it should excite delight in our hearts. How long should a person thank God for forgiving his sins? Is life long enough? Is time long enough? Is eternity long enough? How long should a man thank God for saving him from going down to hell? Would fifty years suffice? Oh, no, that would never do; the blessing is too great to all be sung in a millennium.

            Suppose you and I never had a single mercy except this one, that we were made the “children of God...and joint heirs with Christ” (Romans 8:16-17). Suppose we had nothing else to enjoy. We ought to sing about that along forever and ever. Yes, if we were sick, cast on a bed of pain with a hundred diseases, with the bone wearing through the skin, yet since God’s everlasting mercy would sanctify every pain, should we not still continue to lift up happy psalms to God and praise Him forever and ever? Therefore, let this be your slogan all through the year: “Hallelujah! Praise the Lord!”

            The Israelites always closed the Passover with a hymn of praise; therefore, as we celebrate the Passover season in 2005, let us sing praises to God forevermore for His wondrous salvation He has wrought us IN CHRIST. It's getting late neighbor. Israel left Egypt "in haste!" The time is coming soon when the trump of God shall sound and time shall be no more. We will rise to meet our Passover Lamb in the air with a SHOUT and a TRUMP, with the voice of the Archangel. We're getting close friend. I pray you know this Christ today. He has changed my life and the life of my family. I know He can do the same for you. Be blessed in HIM!