Whose Side Are You On? - Joshua 5

whose side are you on anyway? Have you ever heard that in an argument? Maybe it's been said to you, you were disagreeing with someone, they thought you should agree with them. Maybe you said it to someone. You're in this argument, you're in this discussion, and you just ask, "Well, whose side are you on anyway?" You're not even worried, really, who's right or wrong at that point. You just want them to agree with you. You want them to be on your side. Whose side are you on anyway? I'm sure you've used that language before. I'm sure you've said that language before. In fact, if you're like me, you've probably said it to God before. My God, whose side are you on? I got things I want to do. I got things I want to have happen. Whose side are you on anyway? I know if you're a football fan, you've probably prayed that way before. At some point, Football's coming up soon. It's not that far away. There will be many prayers said that the Chiefs win, like God, help our team win, help the other team win lose, get defeated. And you pray God, whose side are you on anyway? We was asking about that. We ask it, Nations all over the world will pray. God, whose side are you on? Really, we have things we want to accomplish. We have things we want to do as a nation, and you just need to bless whatever we're doing and be on our side. We know that nations have said that. We know that we've said that thing, that we' said, God, I'm going to let you choose to be on my side instead of me choosing to be on your side. Today, we're going to get Joshua 5. As we're looking at Joshua 5, I want this idea to stick with you the whole time Don't ask God to be on your side. Be on God's side. Let me say that again. Don't ask God to be on your side. Be on God's side.. If you have your Bibles, you can turn to Joshua chapter 5, we've been working through the book of Joshua, week by week, looking at almost a chapter a week We've come to a place where the nation of Israel has crossed the Jordan River. Look at me in verse 1, to see what's going on. says,As soon as all the kings of the Amorites, who are beyond the Jordan to the west, and and all the kings of the Canaanites, who were by the sea, heard that the Lord had dried up the waters of the Jordan for the people of Israel until they had crossed over, their hearts melted And there was no longer any spirit in in them because of the people of Israel. So that's the scene we have. What's happened prior to this is God had, early on, 500 years early, a promised a man named Abraham, that he was going to give him the land of Israel. He said, "I'm gonna make you into a great nation, and I'm going to give you this land." Abraham had a had a son, then he had a grandson, and then that whole family ended up in Egypt for 400 years, where they were enslaved by the Egyptians. Moses then came on the scene at the beginning of the book of Exodus, and he led the Jewish nation, going from 70 people to hundreds of thousands of people out of the land of Egypt and into the Sinai Peninsula, where they proceeded to disobey God. There were two men, among 12 spies, Joshua and Caleb, the Book of Joshua's about Joshua. These 12 men went into the promised land that moved Moses sent them in to say, "Spy out the land, let us know what's going on." And they came back with two very different reports. The majority report from 10 spies was, "The people in this land are way too powerful for us. They will destroy us, they will eat us alive, we will lose, we cannot go into this land." The minority report from Joshua and Caleb was, "It's a great land. We serve a great God, we're gonna win because of him. We should go into the land." And the nation of Israel chose the majority report, and said, "We're not going in." And God said, "Because of your disobedience, because of your lack of faith for 40 years, you're going to wander into the Sinai Peninsula, until this whole generation dies off. So it'll be their kids that actually get into the Promised Land. Joshua and Caleb are the only two that make it in out of that group. At the point we're at in the story of Joshua, Moses has already died Aaron has died, Miriam has died. Moses sister. The current leadership has all passed away and has fallen to John. Joshua. So we're not very far in the Bible, right? We're just like right here into the biblical story. And one of the greatest leaders in scripture, Moses, has died. Joshua has taken over. He has crossed the Jordan River not by building a bridge, but by God stopping the waters so that the whole nation has gone across. Reminiscent of 40 years earlier when Moses came out of E Egypt and they part of the Red Sea. And now they're on the west side of the Jordan. Into the land God had promised Abraham some 500 years before, and what happens when they land there is that God makes the Amorites and the other tribes, the other kingdoms that were in that land, terrified, so they freeze in place. What you would expect to happen was, as soon as this nation, who would been wandering for 40 years in the wilderness, moved into the land, they would be attacked, but they're not, because God has frozen the other nations in place, because he has a purpose about a renewableewal of the covenant, of their commitment to God, of them choosing God's side and not saying God choose our side, needs to take place in Joshua 5 that the people have been unfaithful, and God is now going to renew the covenant with them. If you look in verses 2 to 9, we're going to see the people choosing God's side through circumcision and covenant renewal. Look what it says. At that time, the Lord said to Joshua, so they're on the west side of the Jordan. They've crossed the Jordan and they're waiting there. It says,A that time, the Lord said to Joshua, "Make flint knives and circumcise the sons of Israel a second time." So Joshua made flint knives and circumcised the sons of Israel that goth. So, what's going on here? First of all, let's talk a little bit about circumcision. If you haven't read the Bible, if you don't know, you like, what's going on with this? Circumcision was a sign given to Abraham some 500 years before. If you know the story of Abraham, God called Abraham, his wife was barren, so they weren't having any kids, and he said, "Abraham, I'm going to make you into a great nation. You have so many kids, you want me able to count. It'd be like sand on the se shore His wife's baron, they're not having any kids, and Abraham is not having faith in God about this. He's like, I want to believe you, but I'm not having faith." He ends up trying to solve this problem with Hagar, his handmaid, in other ways. Eventually, as a son, God gives him the sign of circumcision which involves cutting away foreskin. I'll leave it at that. We got young people in the room. And the sign is a reminder of Abraham's unfaithfulness at that time. You didn't trust me when I said what I was gonna do, so I'm gonna put a sign in the place of your unfaithfulfulness, so to speak. And this will be a sign that's going to get passed down through all the generations. So from Abraham all the way to Moses, this was happening on and off. When Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt, they circumcised everyone, as a sign of commitment, of following God. And the head into the Sinai, and then they don't go into the land, and they end up wandering for 40 years. And when it says that they sacrificed the sons of Israel a second time, it's not the same people. It was different people, because everyone who had been circumcised coming out of Egypt, all the grown men, didn't circumcise their kids, didn't circumcise their boys. Now, imagine that. The thing Moses had commandanded them, they're not doing. Moses, in fact, God had to threaten him with the life of his own sons to circumcise his kids. And they're not doing this thing that God had commanded 500 years before, so for 40 years, they did didn't circumcise any of their kids. Now, these people are all grown. They're in their 30s and 40s. And they've walked into this land. It seems counterintuitive. If you're being honest, you're like,We've just invaded a land. Here's what we should do. Let's circumcise all the warriors and make sure they're really ineffective for a while and hope the armies from the other nations don't come attack us. And so thousands upon thousands of men are circumcised on the plains outside of Jericho. So many people were circumcised, by the way, that they named the place Gibetharalath, which, if you translate the Hebrew, it means "Fskin Hill Because the Jewish people love naming things after events that happen, and that's what would have been called as a reminder that all time of this is what happened here, at this point, at this time, we're trying to recommit ourselves a whole new generation of following God because for 40 years, we didn't do this thing that he asked. And so it goes on and we begin to think about, like circumcision beyond just a physical act. Moses, before he had passed away, again, he had just died this year in Joshua's life, before he had passed away, had talked about circumcision, what physical circumcision for a Jewish person was really pointing to He says, in Deuteronomy 30 verse 6, In the Lord of God will circumcise your heart, in the heart of your offspring, so that you will love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, and with all your soul, that you may live, that this physical, outward sign which started with Abraham, was meant to speak to an inward reality of trust in God, of faithfulness to God, of commitment to God. The outward sign was to be reflective of an inward reality, but Moses recognized you can do the outward sign and not have the inward reality. But there will come a day, he said, one day, when God's going to circumcise your heart and then make you faithful to him. We're going to talk more about how that happens later in the message, but just have that sitting in the back of your mind. Verse 4 says this, and this is the reason why Joshua circumcised them All the males of the people who came out of Egypt, all the men of war had died in the war wilderness on the way after they had come out of Egypt. Though all the people who came out had been circumcised, yet all the people who were born on the way in the wilderness after they had come out of Egypt had not been circumcised. For the people of Israel walked 40 years in the wilderness, until all the nation, the men of war who came out of Egypt, perished, because they did not obey the voice of the Lord. There's key, they did not obey God for 40 years. The Lord swore to them that he would not let them see the land that the Lord had sworn to their fathers, to give to us a land flowing with milk and honey. That's the same language that Joshua had used 40 years earlier, when he said, Godod will give us this land. It's flowing with milk and honey. He's promised it to us when they rejected him." So it was the children, the children of these people who said no, 40 years ago, whom the Lord raised up in their place. God's going to accomplish his promises, and so he raises up a new generation that Josh was circumcised, for they were uncircumcised because they had not been circumcised on the way. They had not been faithful. It's it's shocking if you pause for a moment to go, how quickly the Jewish nation quit Obbang. Now they were in the wilderness. This whole generation was corrupt. They were constantly following away if you read the story of what happened in the wilderness. Constantly falling away as God constantly gave them sign after sign after sign that he was with them. There was a pillar of fire and cloud that was leading them. They would have manna that they would eat. He provided quails for them to eat. He provided water from a rock while they were out in this desert place. Over and over, God was saying, "I am sufficient. trust me." And they did not trust him. Verse 8,When the circum of the whole nation was finished, they remained in their places in the camp until they were healed. That's why the nations, God, had said, I'm going to put a pause on any of these nations messing with you, so that you can renew the covenant with me. In the Lord said to Joshua, today, I have rolled away the reproach of Egypt from you. And so the name of that place is called Gilgal to this day. Gilgal sounds like gal which means to roll or to wheel in Hebrew. So this name and the place, this is the place. So when they were in Gilgal as a city, they would go, this is where God rolled away the reproach of Egypt, the slavery that we had been in. Probably the mockery the Egyptians had been doing also, because they came out of Egypt and then just wandered around the Sinai Peninsula for 40 years. You would imagine at some point some Egyptians probably said, you said you were going to go worship your God out there, and you're just wandering around lost, confused. He's pretty weak God. He can't even get you into the place he said he would get you. You probably want to choose a different God And so all this reproach of both their slavery and the insults, he says, "I've rolled that away, 'cause now they're sitting in the promised land ready to see if God would keep his word." And so I've rolled this away, so they had this circumcision event massively important, Traumatic, also. So much so that the warriors who are going to fight have to heal up and wait. But that's not all that they do, and verses 10 and 12, we see that they are trying to trust God's provision with Passover and manna. Look what it says. It says, "While the people of Israel were encamped Gilgal, the place where their reproach had been rolled away, " they kept the Passover. On the 14th day of the month, in the evening on the plains of Jericho, and the day after the Passover, on that very day, they ate of the prachuce of the land, unleavened cakes and parched grain. And the man ceased the day after they ate of the produce of the land and there was no longer manna for the people of Israel, but they ate of the fruit of the land of Canaan that year.. So here's what's happened. 40 years prior, when Moses was leading the Jewish people out of Egypt, if you remember the story, Moses showed up toaraoh and said,, " God wants my people to be let go, to go worship out in the Sinai Peninsula. And Pharaoh said, no." And then a series of plagues began to happen. frogs and darkness and hail. Each of those are tied into Egyptian deities, basically saying, "Look, our God, Moses is God, Yahweh is greater than the Egyptian gods." The last plague was the death of all the firstborn in the land. God comes to Moses to say, "Tell the people this.Tight, you will be liberated.But here's what I need you to do, take a lamb, each household, sacrifice it, smeal the blood of that lamb over the door And then when the destroying angel comes into the nation to wipe out the firstborn male in every house, says, God's going to stand at the door and keep that death out. So the imagery is there is this judgment coming from God on the nation of Egypt, and God standing at each door of the house of the Israelites who has smeared the blood of this lamb on this door and saying, "Not here, not this house, God's protecting them." And they were to celebrate this passover every year after that. Now, we don't read anywhere from this first passover to the one we read in Joshua of the nation's celebrating Passover at all in the wilderness. So I don't know if they did or not. I don't think they did, because they weren't circumcising their kids either. And so they had this momentous event, and within a year they may have quit celebrating it and didn't celebrate it for an entire 40 years. And now they celebrate the event that 40 years ago led them out of Egypt, they're now celebrating because they're in the land that God had promised. 40 years later. And so we see them celebrate this Passover event to say, God, we trust you. And what happens the day after Passover is manna stops. If you haven't read the Old Testament, when the Jewish people ended up in the Sinai Peninsula, it's a desert place.. It's not great for producing crops, and if you're nomadic, which is what they were at this time you can't plant and wait. And so they're like, "We don't have any food. We'd rather go back to Egypt and eat that food. And so God gives them manna, which is a Hebrew word. We didn't translate the word man. That's just where it is in Hebrew. And it just means, what is it? Because they went out and said there's this kind of stuff on the ground. We don't know what it is, so we'll just call it, we don't know what it is. What is it? And they would gather it every day and use it and make it like into bread. And so for 40 years, they were sustained by this manna. God also gave them birds to eat, but he sustained them. The day after they take the Passover when they're in the promised Land, it says, the manna stopped. And they then ate of the produce of the land. And we think, how amazing that it's so cool. But imagine you're one of the people who, for 40 years of your life, would go outside, harvest manna take it inside, and eat, and the next day, you would go out, and it would be there, and the day day after you get into the land, God's promise you, you've circumcised yourself, you've had Passover, you go outside, and there's no manna. You, I don't know if I like this God. I'm not sure if the thing you're giving us is better than the thing we had. The provision they had been getting, they no longer have, because God has something better for them. And he's saying, "rust me, trust me in this circumcision that you're doing, trust me in the passover that you're doing. I know what I'm doing that I have something better for you, or lamp flowing with milk and honey, not this sustenance that I gave you in the wilderness, which's kept you alive, which you got every day. But there's so much more, but I could imagine they would have been scared. I would have been nervous. I've been been like, I don't know. I like the way it was, God. I like the provision you have given me already. Can we just keep doing that? I'm not sure about this new thing you have for me this new future you have for me, this new place you want me, me to go? You're telling me it's going to be better, but I'm not sure. I kind of like the way it was. We all get comfortable in that routine. And yet God gives them this new thing. He says, "Trust me in what's happening." And then we have this final encounter in Joshua 5. The nation is on the other side of the Jordan, on the west side, the Canaanites and the Amorites are being held at Ba by God, while the name nation is circumcised to show their renewal, their commitment to God, while they celebrate the Passover. God ends the manna to say, "The land I promised you is here, I don't have to provide this anymore. I'm providing it in a different way. Now, you need to hear that. Cause I think for 40 years, you could have walked outside and said, "God, you're amazing. You're providing this stuff that's just. We don't even know what it is. It just shows up in here here it is. Now, I imagine at some point after 40 years, you just start to think that's normal. God's miracle is normal. Then you end up in this land, and it's going to feel normal. Like we plant crops, they grow, we eat them we have animals, they make animals, we eat those animals. It's just normal. It's everyday life. I imagine some of you this week went to the grocery store. You got food, you put it in your cart, you went home, you ate it. You didn't think once that God is the one doing that. It didn't feel miraculous at all that God provided for us. But every bit of food in this whole world is provided by God, all the time. It just feels normal, because God's a part of all of that, but it's regular, and now they're in this regular season but Joshua has this very interesting encounter where he chooses God's side, when he meets the commander of God's army. Look at verses 13 15. It says, "When Joshua is by Jericho, he lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, a man was standing before him with his drawn sword in his hand. Now, you have to remember, they're about to go into hostile territory. Joshua knows as battles ahead, and he's a man who comes walking up with his sword drawn. That's a sign of war. That's a sign of aggression. And so Joshua sees this man and asks him a simple question. Look what he says. And Joshua went to him and said to him, "Are you for us, or for our adversaries? Whose side are you on, anyway? is what he's asking this guy. He has the wrong question, by the way, of this man,'cause he wants to know whose side are you on? Are you with us, are you with them? Pick your side and then I'll know how to treat you. Are you with me? Are you against me? And look what the commander of the army of the Lord said. He said, no. What a great answer, by the way. Cause Josh wants to go, "Are you with me, are you with them?" And his answer is no, I'm not with you, and I'm not with them.Look what he says. But I am the commander of the army of the Lord, now I have come." That's not what Joshua was asking, but the answer he got was, "I'm not on your side, on their side. I'm the commander of God's army." When we're reading in the New Testament, by the way, you're going to see that Jesus, in the Book of Revelation chapter 19, is described as the commander, the leader of God's angelic army. In Matthew 24, he says, that he has angels that he commands. More than likely, this commander of the army of the Lord is a Theophany, or an appearance of God, to Joshua." And so he says, "No, I'm not on your side side, Joshua, I'm not on the Amorites or the Canaanite side. I'm on God's side. He's asking Joshua, what side are you going to be on Joshua? Are you going to be with God or not with God? God's not picking sides that we get on. He's telling us to pick the side of him and be on. He says, "No, I'm the commander of the army of the Lord. Now I have come." And Joshua, look what he did. F on on his face to the earth and worshiped and said to him, "What does my Lord say to his servant?" You see, Joshua quickly changed his opinion. Whose side are you on? Are you with me or them?" He said, "Neither. I'm on God's side. And Jos Joshua falls down and worships and says, "What you say, I'll do." Joshua has clearly chosen God's side. And as the commander of the Lord's army said to Joshua, take off your sandals from your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy. And Joshua did so. If you know your Old Testament story, he's rewalking the steps of Moses. He's kind of fully coming into his replacement of Moses, Moses, this leader for 40 years, who had led the people out of Egypt, had led them in the wilderness for 40 years, all the miracles he did. He's died recently. Joshua has taken over. He part of the Jordan a massive miracle, much like Moses, part of the Red Sea. He's now standing in front of this commander of the Lord's army as Mos Moses stood in front of a burning bush and was told, "Take your shoes off. You're standing on holy ground. Joshua, take your shoes off. You're standing on holy ground. Joshua has fully stepped into being on God's side. He's the new Moses. But what's interesting when we read Joshua's story, is he's the new Moses, but he's not the final Moses. Moses predicted, he said, "God's gonna raise up a prophet like me from among you. Listen to him." Joshua was the first manifestation of that prophecy from Moses. But the ultimate manifestation is Jesus Christ.. If you remember two weeks ago, the name Joshua and the name Jesus are the same names. In English, we've just changed them. So it's the same Hebrew name, which is the Old Testestament language, the Old Test written in Hebrew. It's the same Greek name but we've separated them to make a distinction. So you have Joshua, this Old Testament figure, in Jesus, but they have the same name. It just means God God saves. Yahweh saves. And so Jesus is the greater Joshua. Joshua led the Jewish people into the physical promised land defeated the physical and enemies of the people, and settled them in that land. Jesus delivers us into the spiritual promised land. He defeats sin and death itself. He leads a greater exodus than than Joshua led. Joshua was this miniature, this kind of early foreshadowing of what Jesus was going to do All that's happening in the Old Testament is pointing towards is God's plan to lead towards Jesus. And so with 2,000 years post Jesus, some 15, 3,500 years post Joshua and what happened happened. What can we learn from Joshua as he points to Jesus And remember, the idea you should keep with yourself is, don't ask God to bear on your side, be on God.'s side. I think one thing we can learn from the story of Joshua and the story of Jesus is trusting God can be painful and uncomfortable. that as I said on the plains of Jericho, imagine if you're one of the men of war, and Joshua comes to you and says, "Hey, guys, here's the deal." For 40 years, our parents didn't do what they were supposed to. They were supposed to circumcise all of us on the eighth day of our life. They didn't do that, and so we have to get this job done. And so we're going to circumcise all the men. Hundreds of thousands, by the way, in order to be faithful to God, I would put that in the painful category. If you're the guy, you want, " I'm going to be faithful, I'm not happy about this. This isn't how I would do it, but we're not asking God to be on our side, but to be on God's side. It says, the whole nation were circumcised, and they stayed there until they were able to heal When Jesus was on the earth, the last night of his life, he prays to his Father, there's some other way for us to deal with sin and death in this world than me dying on a cross. Let's do that, but not my will, but your will be done. And the next day he dies on a cross, following God's will, that following God, trusting, God, can be painful. We never want to lie to you from this pulpit and say, just trust God, and all your problems go away, and everything's wonderful, and everything's great. No you can give your life to Jesus, and your ultimate problem is gone, which is sin and death and separation from God. But your day to day problems may still be there, problems that just exist in the world, the car that broke down,, still going to break down for Christians. God doesn't heal every car of every Christian The debt that you accumulated, it's still there the next day. Probably not getting paid off. That health issue you had before you accepteded Christ, you still have. You may add a few more problems you didn't have. You may have family members who turn on you because you've accepted Jesus. You may have to like, stop the job you have because they aren't happy that you're not doing the things you used to do. You're not fudging the numbers. You're actually tying to be ethical. And they go, "We can't have that, so you're going to lose your job. You can find there's other problems when you follow crisis It can be painful when we trust Him, and it can be uncomfortable. The Jewish people's manna ceased. The thing they was so comfortable with, and it could be when you trust God, that the things you were comfortable with, that you knew, you were sure about, he says, "I got other plans for you." And you're going, "I don't know if those other plans are as secure as man.a every morning. I'm not sure what that looks like a week, a month, a year from now. And it can be uncomfortable. We still trust him. We put our hope in him. Second, I think we can see from this is we need to commit to following Jesus in baptism. And why do I say in baptism? Because there's this connection that the Bibleible makes between circumcision in the Old Testament and baptism in the New Testament. Paul writing in Colossians chapter 2, verses 11 and 12, says this In him, that's in Jesus also, you are circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, and we which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God who raised him from the dead. This same Paul, who wrote Colossians writes in Romans 2 28 and 29. For no one is a Jew, who is merely one outwardly nor is circumcision outward and physical, but a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter. His praise is not from man, but from God. So what Paul tells us, who was Jewish, who had been circumcised physically on the eighth day, he says, "The goal, the point of physical circumcision, was to point towards heart circumances.cision, which the people struggled with. No one was faithful. No one in this world just goes, "You know what, I just serve God all the time, 24/7, I never sin, I never do wrong. No one except Jesus. He's the only human that ever did that. The rest of us are broken and going, "I can't be faithful, just like the Israelites, wandering for 40 years, not keeping God's laws. And even if we keep them at times, wondering is my heart fully in it. Paul says that the one who is truly circumcised is one who circumcised inwardly. That's done by the Spirit. It's nothing that we earn. It's nothing that I accomplish. So when we baptize someone, Paul says baptism represents, points to what God has done on the inside of a person. Baptism is our outward confession that we have repented of our sin, and we're trusting Jesus to save us. We're not trusting ourselves. I put no trust in myself to be right with God, because I'm fully aware that in myself, in my own strength, I lie, I cheat, I steal I try to cut corners, I'm not always faithful. And sometimes when I am faithful, it's for the wrong reason, and sometimes I am faithful for the right reason, but but there's a whole lot of sin mixed into that. And so I say, "Jesus, you're the only one that can accomplish this for me. So I just trust you. I confess that I want to follow you, and I ask ask you to save me, and that's what baptism represents. That's why Paul connects it with circumcision. It's this outward reality of what's really happened, which is what Moses wanted, which was in words, circumcision of the heart. That's what the Spirit does when someone puts their trust in Christ Commit to following Jesus and baptism. If you're here, and you haven't committed to following him, or love for you to give your life to Jesus. If you have questions about that. At the end of this service, I'll be in the back, you can come talk to me and ask about that. But we see this commitment to following Jesus in baptism connected with circumcision, but we also can see, finally, remember your commitment to Jesus in the Lord's Supper. So in the plains of Jericho, the Jewish people circumcised all the men, and they celebrated the Passover The last night of Jesus's life, he was having a Passover meal with his followers. And he took Brandy broke, and he says, "This is my body broken for you. He took wine, and he poured it out. He said, "This is my blood, of the new covenant shed for you. The new covenant was an Old Testament idea from Jeremiah, where God says, "I'm going to work in such a way that you're disobedience, and all that you couldn't get done under the laws Moses gave you, because you were broken as humans I will accomplish in you through my spirit. And Jesus says, I'm starting that right now, by dying on a cross, in the same way that when God stood at the doors at Passover of the Israelites and said, no, there'll be no death in this house. Jesus says, "I will die for you." And then I stand in front and say, there will be no death for this person.Yes, we will die physically, but spiritually, we are brought to life in the life that Christ gives us. Jesus, as he celebrated the Last Supper and said, "This is my body broken for you. This is my blood poured out for you. As often as you take of this meal do it in remembrance of me," told us church that they would be continuing this celebration of following Him. As Jesus is crucified, John tells us in John 1914, that it was a time when they would sacrifice the Passover lbs. Paul Paul in 1 Corinthians 57, says this, "Cleansse out the old 11 that you may be a new lump as you really are in 11, for Christ, our passover lamb has been sacrificed." And then Paul wrote these words in 1 Corinthians 11, to a church that was struggling with divisions and he was pointing them to the supper that Jesus gave to say, we're united in Christ, in in this meal reminds us of that. says before I receive from the Lord, what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus, on the night when he was betrayed, took bread, and we had given thanks, he broke it and said, "This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me." And the same way also, he took the cup after supper saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this as often as you drink it in rememance of me for as often as you eat the bread, and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.