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Bibleline Bibleline, here God’s word on Bibleline, here God’s truth on Bibleline. Welcome to Bibleline with Dr. Ralph Yankee Arnold, pastor of Calvary Community Church in Tampa, Florida, clearly declaring the Gospel of Jesus Christ through the radio and the internet. Your regular prayers and monthly support make it possible for Bibleline to continue on the air. You can reach us toll free at 1-800-576-3771. Online donations may be made by clicking on the donations link on the BibleLineMinistries.org homepage. We pray that you will enjoy our commitment to the clear gospel of Jesus Christ and that today’s concluding message of this teaching will be a blessing to you and your family.

I want you to look there in verse 21 of of Exodus 10, and the Lord said unto Moses, stretch out thy hand toward heaven, that there may be darkness over the land of Egypt, even darkness which may be felt, and Moses stretched forth his hand toward heaven, and there was a thick darkness in all the land of Egypt three days. They saw not one another, neither rose any from his place for three days, and yod on the line is part in your Bible.

But all the children of Israel had light in their dwelling. Dark everywhere in the world, but only with Israel and in their dwellings was their light and it was light for three days. They had three candles that they would put on the table that represented that though the world is dark, there’s light with the Lord. And though Egypt had no light, Israel had light. You know there’s a message in there somewhere I bacterias. When you stop and think, he says, the world is in darkness.

We were born into the kingdom of darkness, but when you and I trusted Christ as our Savior, we were placed into the kingdom of light. Well, remember Jesus came into the world and says, I am the light of the world. He is the light of the world. I don’t have time to look at this verse, but in the book of 1 Corinthians in chapter 5 and verse 6 and 8. It talks about Christ is our Passover, cast out the leaven.

Talking about you and I as individuals, remember that we’re supposed to live a clean, holy, pure life, and that we’re supposed to search and make sure that we kind of get these things taken care of and get them out of our lives. You see, one of the things that they would do is before the ceremony actually started this, get a broom and sweep and make sure they got up all the crumbs of the bread, lest there would be some yeast in it, so that there’d be no yeast, because it’s the type of sin.

And whenever we come to celebrate our communion service, that’s why we’re asked to search our heart because we want the Lord to search us and then reveal to us any area in our life that needs to be corrected, that needs to be changed. And God will take care of those things for us. I want you to take your Bible looking in the book of John chapter 13. Look in John chapter 13.

You’ll notice in the Gospel of John in chapter 13, something wonderful happened one night. It was a Passover, by the way, that they were celebrating. And at this Passover, says in verse 1 of chapter 13, in verse 1, not before the feast of the Passover when Jesus knew that his hour was come, that he should depart out of this world unto the Father, having loved his own which were in the world. He loved them unto the end. being ended, the devil having now put into the heart of Judas’ carried Simon’s son to betray him.

Verse three, Jesus, no, do you think he knew what Judas was going to do? And you’ll notice that the Bible talks about Judas was sent out that night. You see there in verse 31, therefore when he was gone out, Jesus said, now with the Son of Man glorified. Therefore when he was gone out. Look in verse 30. He then having received the soap, went immediately out, and I wonder why it would just happen to say that. It was night.

You know, I could make a sermon out of that somewhere. It was night. See, as I talk and as I reflect upon some of these things, you’d be surprised. You might be able to think of something. You know, I bet that means this. You know, that could mean that. And when you gain knowledge of the Bible, you’d be surprised how certain things just kind of comes into your mind. And God can speak and so forth to every individual. But see, this is what some of the Jewish people did.

Not everybody did exactly the same thing all the time. You got people a day, Jewish people a day that don’t even celebrate the Passover. They don’t do anything about it. And some things don’t mean the same thing. And, you know, I really don’t know. I’m not Jewish. I’ve never been to one. I’d like to see it all done, but no one, Dr. Cameron, I just got enthralled just listening to him talk about it because he would relate and refer to so many of these things.

And you know, in the same chapter when he’s talking about the Passover, he’s talking to his disciples and he gets down there and what does he do? He gets a basin with some water and starts to do something. What is he doing? He’s going to wash their feet. They’re rushing their feet at the Passover. I bet there’s a message in there somewhere. Do you know that he’s Peter, you are not going to wash my feet. Jesus said, I don’t wash your feet.

You have no part with me. Well, not just my feet, wash the whole body. He says, you that are washed, don’t need a total bath. Just need to clean your feet. once you trust Christ as Savior, you’ve already been washed as white as snow. But as we go through life, we kind of get a little dirt on us here at times, and God says, you need to wash your feet. First John 1, 9 is how we wash our feet.

God wants us to stay clean. But you see, what they did in the Passover, there’s always a reason behind it, the story that’s there. So the Seder begins with the lighting of those candles, and then there would be the blowing of the shofar. Remember, they would come into Jerusalem on Passover, and I mean, everybody would be there. I mean, the place would be just Pass. And whenever they would blow the shofar, then the high priest knew this is when they would sacrifice the lambs.

I wonder if there was a show for that sounded at night. I would love to have known. When I first came here, I remember one of the first services we had, somebody had a big old show for a horn. Who had that? It wasn’t Barry Enden, you bring that? Somebody had one and I remember it. I’m not sure if I blew it or not. I’m not sure. You can pass out just trying to make that thing sound. But anyway, I want you to know that there’s some things that happened at the celebration, the cedar, that if you listen closely, you can see Christ.

You can see Him and just about everything. Now, they had the cup of sanctification and it was filled. And then there was a prayer that summed up the reason for the celebration and they would all drink. And then the youngest one usually, what asked a couple of questions? Because this night was different from all other nights. What’s so different about this night? Because this night, why do we eat lamb? We can eat anything all the other… But why this night?

We do this. And then there was a question about why do we have to eat these bitter herbs? You can use the youngest one or a child would make the statement, ask the question. And why do we have to dip our food twice? And why do we have to eat the lamb? Why do we eat matzah, the unbroken bread? What’s all this about? So they had the questions, and then as they would do it, then they would answer, and at different times, they would have different songs or recite various prayers, and so on.

I just cut to a lot of stuff and just get to the thing that really interests me. And then there’s the partaking of the spring vegetables, which represents the new life. And they would take the little sprig of parsley, they would dip it into that little bowl of salt water, very, very salty, very yucky, or as unconcerned. And then they would eat it. Along with maybe a hard-boiled egg and some other stuff, but it was a coming out of the tears because of the bitterness that they had to go through.

The lessons that they’ve had to learn, knowing that only God could do this for them. And Lord walked them through all these things and help them to see. Then there is the breaking of the middle matzo. There was three of them, three pieces of unleavened bread. Now, you may wonder why was there three? I think there’s a story there someplace. You know, it could be representative to me in my mind. The Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit. You know, we call it the Trinity, the Triune God.

We’re talking about a trinity. Our Lord is one God, and the second one is the Son of God. And the second one is the one that’s taken from the middle and it’s broken. And the smaller piece you really put back down on the table, but then that other one, the large one, they would wrap it up and then they’d hide it. And the matzah also had to have something done to it to make sure that it doesn’t rise and there’s no yeast in it, you know.

And so they would strip it and then they would pierce it so that whenever they baked it, it’d be flat as a flitter. But it represented something. Now, why would you take the matzah, no leaven, and then strike it, pierce it, and it’s the second one, and break it. I bet there’s a story here. You probably can’t even come close to figuring it out. Who that might represent. I remember someone who said, I am the bread of life. Anybody remember that?

Do you believe that there’s a possibility that the one that was broke could be a picture of the Son of God, Jesus Christ, and that He was broken and wrapped in a napkin and hid. The story ain’t over though. Not yet. It ain’t over. So I believe it is more than just meets the eye. There’s the, at this time, the reciting of the 10 plagues. And as they would do that, they would take the cup that they had, and maybe with a little spoon, and just into a plate, as they would say the blood on one of the plagues.

Then the frogs, the lice, the flies, the cattle, the boils, the hail, the locus, the darkness of night, the firstborn. And they were to do this because God wanted them to remember all that God had done to the enemy so that they would finally come to conclusion. When I said, let my people go, you let my people go, and they went, and God brought them out. And though the world was dark for three days, there was light in the house of Israel, and Israel was to be the light of the world.

God was going to use Israel as a testimony to the world of what God would do through one nation that would yield to them. And Israel kind of messed up their wonderful opportunity. And now the Lord says to the church, you are the light of the world. The world is dark without the knowledge of truth. And you and I have been given this wonderful knowledge of how to have eternal life, this truth, and we’re supposed to explain it to everyone.

The Bible says Christ was our Passover, and all of this is about Christ and what He did for us. There were these three main symbols of the Passover, the Lamb, the mots, and the bitter herbs. In each one represented something, the Lamb, the Remember the Sacrifice, the matzo, the bread of life, and the bitter herb to remember the story, the life of slavery. Look there in Exodus and 1 Exodus and chapter 1. Exodus chapter 1 and look in verse 14.

And you’ll see that this is what they were to remember, and they made their lives bitter. The Egyptians. They made their lives bitter with hard bondage in mortar and in brick. And then sometimes they would even have some crushed up apples and some crushed up walnuts, and they put it together so that there would be something that had like a little sweet taste, representing the mortar that they used between the blocks of the bricks. God had so many things for them to cause them to remember.

Now, let me tell you, you have no idea how many things will happen in your life that God wants you to remember and because you fail to remember and you start going astray And God will kind of have to chase you a little bit. Maybe even have you flashbacks of remembering. I’ve seen so many people who have wasted their life, and there was a song that somebody wrote called, Wasted Years, Wasted Years. And they think about all those years, they lived and wasted those years.

And then they look back with such grief, heartache, They messed up so terribly without honoring God, without doing what God wanted, then they realize in the sorrow that brings upon themselves. God wants us to remember what He’s done for us and remember how good He is. Remember what He promised us and that He’ll never leave you and never forsake you and He will walk with you and He wants us to trust Him. You remember when Israel finally got into the land?

difficult it was for them to trust the Lord in the land of milk and honey. He says, because when you get fat everything that you want, you’re going to forget the God who gave it to you. Did they? They did. And you’ll be surprised how your life used to be and then when God starts blessing you how you can so easily drift from the Lord and forget how good God’s been to you and because you wouldn’t give God the honor of the praise and stay faithful.

God began to slowly take it away from you because you forgot. God wants to always be remembered. When it says, trust in the Lord with all thine heart, lean not unto thy own understanding in all thy ways, thank God. Acknowledge Him, thank God. God wants to always be on your mind, in your mind. God wants that. Look in Numbers in chapter 9, Numbers in chapter 9, and verse 11, and verse 11 it makes this statement, the 14th day of the second month at evening, they shall keep it and eat it with unleavened bread and bitter herbs.

Now what they were eating was the lamb, the sacrifice, and it says here, they ate with the unleavened bread, the matzo, and the bitter herbs. Now whether or not they made it into a 9-11 sandwich, I don’t know, but they were to eat it. And this was toward the end of the whole thing. And so when it was over with and they had somebody always finds, of course, the matzo that was hidden. They bring it out in this time of joyous occasion.

But remember this, you and I know that Jesus was, yes, He was broken because He had been striped and pierced, and he was crucified to pay for our sins of the whole world. He didn’t do this just for Israel. He did it for us too. God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son. The whosoever believe it than him should not perish but have everlasting life, and then the rapid and a napkin and hide it away.

And we know that Jesus was wrapped in a napkin and hidden away for three days and three nights. Almost like the three days that it was night. But he came back from the dead. You remember when the disciples, the women, everybody went looking for him, trying to find him? I think there’s part of the illustration that’s might be found in that too. Did you know that the time will come when Christ will appear in great glory at the end of the tribulation period?

And every eye will see Him? I want you to take your Bible looking, Zachariah chapter 13. Zachariah and chapter 13. This is a verse that I think there might be a message here because when he shows up and they see him, the one they have been illustrating all these years and didn’t know this is the Messiah. This was Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God. And he says in Zechariah chapter 13, look there in verse 6, and one shall say unto him, What are these wounds in thine hands?

Then he shall answer those with which I was wounded in the house of my friends.” This is when it happened. I came to the house of my friends and they knew him not. They received him not. They striped him and pierced him and broke him. And he says, my body is broken for you. He didn’t break one bone, but he was broken. He didn’t die of a heart attack, but his heart was broken. Jesus died for us. And so when we do the communion service, it’s looking back to what he did.

Now you and I are not Israelites, and we don’t have to go all the way back to the land of Egypt. Let’s go back to the day you trusted the Lord. Can you remember what it was like to be lost? Some people, when they trust the Lord young, they don’t have too much of a memory there. I remember when I was lost. I remember how I thought and how I felt. I remember searching for God and wondering and hoping.

One day, a man who had a light shined it. I saw. He showed me the Son of God that I believed it. Trusted Christ as my Savior, 51 and a half years ago. And I still remember it as if it happened yesterday. I’ve told the story so many times I can’t get it out of my mind. I tell it over and over and over and over again. And I don’t think I’m going to stop now. Telly come. Telly comes.

Look up here. I got a few notes, but it’s difficult to read them when you got water in your eyes. My eyes sweat a lot. This hand represents you and me. The wall represents sin. See, this is just an illustration. This represents something. It’s telling a story. I’ve had people say, well, I just despise it all while at illustration. It’s just illustrating the story. Do you despise the story? Do you despise the story? All I’m doing is illustrating the story.

Should the children of Israel despise what happened? Because, well, we done done this every year for 4,000 years. Don’t you think we ought to quit by now? This is you and me. This is sin. We all have sin on this. God says He loves us. He hates our sin, but He loves us. And because of our sins, we’re enslaved. Just like the children down in Egypt, we can’t deliver ourselves. We have no hope. And unless God works, America will be doomed.

So there is hope. But God says, you can’t deliver yourself, you can’t save yourself. You need a Savior. That’s why God says, not by works of righteousness, which we have done, but according to His mercy, He saves us. So this hand represents Jesus Christ. God in the flesh came into the world. He didn’t have any sin. Matsu. No leaven. No sin. And yet because He loved us, He allowed the world to strip him to pierce him, and he bore our sins and his body on the cross.

So he took all the sin of all the world and paid for it, came back again from the dead. You see, he was hidden in a napkin. He came back from the dead and said that if we would believe that he did this for us, he would put this death payment he made to our account, and we get to go to heaven or what he did. You see, he took all of our bitterness, all of our lostness, our sinfulness, our wickedness, and our sins were placed upon him, and he became sin for us.

that we might be made the righteousness of God. See, that’s what God has done for us. And there’s things that He wanted the nation of Israel to always remember. The Lord gave us the communes, what we call the Lord’s Supper. We celebrate it the first Sunday of every month. And the reason is so less we forget, less we forget. I hope the next communion service we have, every one of you are in it. It ought to be a precious thing for you.

Let’s pray, shall we? If you hear this morning, you’ve never trusted Christ as your Savior. I hope that somehow you understood a little bit how that, yes, God loves you. You’re trapped, you’re a slave. Slave to sin, you can’t save yourself. You’re lost and you’re undone. You’ll spend an eternity in hell. But God loves you. He wants you to have eternal life. He wants you to go to heaven. And so He made it free. If it wasn’t free, we couldn’t go.

We could never pay for it. So He said that He would pay for all of your sins. And if you would believe He did it for you, He would put the payment He made to your account. You get to go to heaven on what He did, not what you do. It’s a gift, totally free. Would you trust Him? Would you believe it? If you will, trust Christ as your Savior this morning. I’d like to have prayer for you. And so I’m going to ask in just a moment to raise your hand.

Raise in your hand doesn’t save you. It just lets me know that what I said made sense to you and said in preacher that made sense to me. And I’m going to trust Christ as my Savior. If you will, we just sleep in it very quickly. It won’t at all. It won’t at all. If you trust that Christ as your Savior, I pray that Passover means a little bit more to you. When next Sunday we celebrate the resurrection of Christ.

I hope it means just maybe a little bit more to you. Because not only did he come back from the dead. He’s coming again. He’s coming to get us. Father, we thank you so much for all you’ve done for us. Thank you for the opportunity we have to come before you. We thank you, Lord, for the opportunity to preach your Word for every person here, for those listening by radio. We’re so thankful that salvation is free. Christ paid it all.

In Christ’s name we pray, Amen. Are you a new listener to Bibleline? Do you enjoy the teachings of Dr. Arnold? Well, if you’ve never contacted us before, we want to give you Dr. Arnold’s book, The Gospel Driven Man. Every day we receive many emails from folks who have questions about repentance and salvation, about faith in works, and about how to share the gospel with friends and loved ones. This book, The Gospel Driven Man, covers all those topics, and we want all new listeners of Bibleline to receive a free copy.

There’s no obligation, no donation necessary, simply call us at 1-800-576-3771 or write to us and request your free copy of The Gospel Driven Man. The mailing address is 4811 George Road, Tampa, Florida, 33634. Again, don’t forget to include your mailing address, and God bless you, and thank you for listening to Bibleline. Thanks for joining us on Bibleline. If you are in the area, we welcome you to visit us. The address for Calvary Community Church is 4811 George Road, Tampa, Florida, 33634.

And now, a closing thought from Pastor Arnold. Friend, one day it will happen. The trumpet will sound, and we will be changed. caught up to meet the Lord in the air. So live today and every day, believing that the Lord is coming soon, just keep looking up.