Ah, what a great old hymn, and
how well you sang it as well. In the cross, be my glory ever. Well, for those of you visiting
with us, you're in a very unusual church, and awesome and strange things happen
here. August 20th is tomorrow, is that
correct? It's a very memorial day for
Miss Pam and I. Four years ago, Miss Pam died
on August 20th. Don't get upset, though, because
she's sitting here on the front row. Some of you were around there
when she had her heart attack on a Wednesday evening. After
instructing me that if I didn't slow down, I was gonna have a
heart attack, she went upstairs and had one. And a very serious
one. And breath left and no pulse. But God. But God. Miracle story. I love to be where
God is because you never know what's gonna happen. And I trust that if you're here
today without Christ, you'll find him precious. It's very
important to me that you open your Bible and that you read,
have read, the texts that Elder Atwell read to us. From the book of Zechariah, one
of my favorite Old Testament passages talking about Zerubbabel,
who is a type of Christ, and the building of the church. You know, the church is under
construction. I wouldn't doubt if there's some brick, some material
in here today that will be put into his church. But it won't
be by your might or your power. but by the Spirit of God that
you come to know Christ and are a part of this great church.
There are many hindrances. Verse 7 talks about the great
mountain. Who art thou, O great mountain? This is in Zechariah 4. Who art thou, O great mountain,
before Zerubbabel? Thou shalt become a plain. In
other words, This is a rubble, but it's so powerful, he'll just
level out the mountains of problems. What a mighty God we serve. And
he shall bring forth the headstone thereof with shoutings crying
grace, grace unto it. When this church is finished,
and I'm not talking about Grace Gospel Fellowship, I'm talking
about the big church in the skies, when the work is And everybody
has been put into that church, and the church is complete. When
all the saints of God are in, when all the elect have been
converted, and when we all get to heaven, we're all going to
cry, this is a work of grace. Grace, grace. Now, if you're
not used to it, we call everything grace around here. And just so
you know this, I'm sure you have read the verse, I don't know
whether you believe it or not, but Ephesians 2 says, by grace
you have been saved. By grace you have been saved. And that grace was, by the way,
not of yourself. It was through faith. which is by grace a gift of God. So no one in here has reason
to boast or brag today. You've been saved by grace. There are two types of people
today here in the service. Some of you in your past were
very self-righteous. You were religious. You were a skunk, but you didn't
act like it, you didn't talk like it, you felt like you were
better than most people. Except God saw your heart and
that all of your works was like a filthy rag, a minstrel cloth.
That's not a pretty sight. And then we have those of you
who have walked the streets, Those of you who have been in
the crack house, those of you who have shot up, those of you
who have lived your life mostly out of the bottle or in the bottle.
But I want to say, and there's only two groups in here, the
self-righteous who think they're righteous and they're not, and
then those of you who are just flat-out rascals. But I want you to know this,
there are many of you in here on both sides of that coin, I
want you to know this and you'll say amen to this, that you are
saved by grace. And those of you who were churchy
and religious, you have so great reason to raise your hand and
sing aloud, God forbid that I should glory save in the cross. Because
you've been delivered out of church darkness and religious
darkness, and then you've been delivered from spiritual death
and given life. So just so nobody in here thinks
that they're better than anybody else. Salvation's by grace. Say, well,
Pastor, you said that week before last when you were here. Yes,
and I will say it again today. Saved by grace. Hey, Pastor, well, you know,
I feel like that, you know, I need to hear more than just grace. That's your problem, not mine. I can't get enough of the grace
of God. So this week, all week, I've
been thinking something like this. Hmm. What a mess. What a mess. And then I thought
of the second text that Joe read this morning from the Corinthian
letter where the Apostle Paul himself said this. Hmm, what
a mess. Here's what he said in verse
9 of the 15th chapter. I am least of the apostles. Why are you mad at Paul? You're
the great Apostle Paul. You're Reverend Paul. You could
be Pope Paul. I mean, you wrote three-fourths
of the New Testament, Paul. You're a mighty man of God. I
am less than the least. And by the way, I don't know
how you can be less than the least, but that's what he said. I shouldn't even be called an
apostle because I persecuted the church in my past. What a mess. There's no one in
here without mess. You have a past mess. And mostly all week I wasn't
thinking about your mess, I was thinking about mine. What a messed
up life. I have fallen so many times. I have failed so many times. I remember some young dreams.
You probably had them too. I thought one day I'll be president
of the United States. But God had greater plans for
me. I would be a preacher of the gospel. I can remember places where I
had those dreams and thought to myself, I will be president
of the United States. I saw myself this week at Lincoln
High School standing at my locker right next to the counselor's
office. By the way, I don't know why they put my locker next to
the counselor's office. Maybe because they knew I was
a mess. But then, as I grew older, the
other side of life soon kicked in. And I began to wonder whether
I would even live to be 20. How could I be saved now? Some
of you have those thoughts? How could I be saved now? There was so many past sins. Anybody in here have past sins? So I don't have to remind you
of them. I won't, in fact, we're not gonna talk so much about
that, but you're welcome. But sin dwells in me presently. I mean, when you get saved, it
doesn't simply mean that life becomes a very simple thing and
everything goes well. But one thing you will learn,
one thing you will learn, one thing you will learn, that salvation
is by grace. One thing you will know that
you have been saved by grace. All you have to do, I'm not encouraging
you to do this much, is to just go back to this morning. You've
already thought enough for God to send you to hell if salvation
was by works. You've already grumbled enough.
You haven't praised God for waking you up this morning. You haven't
said, thank you, Lord. No, some of you said, another
day, another dollar. Rather than, this is the day
the Lord's made, I'll rejoice and be glad in it. Some of you have contradictions
in your life. I did in mine. I, very early, at a very early
age, I'd say four or five, had thoughts and feelings about God.
I'm not saying you have to have those, nor were those in any
way a credit to my account. I'm just saying, very early on,
I had thoughts of God. And I think, you see, salvation is so by grace,
that it's almost incomprehensible. I mean, you ought to always be
trying to enter into this. It was grace alone. It was God's
favor alone. This week I thought about going
through the doorway, opening the screen door in Lowe's, Kentucky,
of that little house my father built, and thinking about God. My pet goat was behind me. We were both going in through
the screen door. I was getting his bottle to feed
him. My pet goat, who got choked on
a corn cob and died. And I held his funeral. I had
a funeral. What I'm saying is that life
takes many twists and turns, and I know some of you so wrestle
with your past. I mean, if you've been on the
street selling your body, and God in His marvelous providence
has brought you to faith in Jesus Christ, Or you were raped by
your uncle or your father. You say, well, pastor, I don't
think you ought to say those things right here in the house
of God. I am saying them because they have happened. You have fightings within and
fightings without. And it does you no good to hear
a guilt message. There is absolutely, first of
all, it would be hypocrisy on my part to talk about, you know,
how you were, some in here were going to get a big crown in heaven
and others were not. There's nobody in here that deserves
a crown. And if you get one, I know whose
feet you're going to put it at, Jesus Christ. I've had church experiences,
good and bad. I've seen pastors run away with
their secretaries. Oh, that's part of, yeah, I'm
talking about real life. I'm painting a very ugly picture
about the reality of life. And I hope that you come to this
conclusion, it's gotta be by grace. It's got to be by grace. Church leaders involved in immorality. I was reading this week about
one of the largest churches in this country where the pastor
for years had been having an affair, in affairs with women
in the church. I'm telling you, if anybody goes
to heaven, it has to be by grace. It's gotta be undeserved favor. So I'm not judging that pastor
here. I'm just trying to shake you
up a little bit to think about your own mess. Huh, what a mess. And you know what? What I hope
would happen, before I get through with the message, some of you
are going, thank you, Lord. for having mercy on me. Thank
you, Lord, for saving my soul. Thank you, Lord, for your grace
and your mercy. Some of you flat out aren't gracious,
because I don't think you know the grace of God. If you know
the grace, some of you say you got saved, but you got over it
too quick. You've lost the wonder that God
saved you. God could save you or damn you
and still be God. I hear people say all the time
for 55 years I've heard this, I just want God to give me what
I deserve. Don't worry about it, honey.
If that's what you want, that's what you'll get. But I don't
think you want what you deserve. The amens ought to have been
louder. You don't want what you deserve. In my own life, by the time I
was 19, I thought I was close to giving up on this whole religious
course of life. I was traveling all over the
country, and every church I went to was deader than a doornail. The whole thing was a hoax. I remember as a young preacher
getting thrown out of a church in Missouri for just talking
the way I'm talking now about God's grace. You see something
happened to me, I haven't got over it. I haven't got over it
today. That's all you hear here. Those of you who are visiting
with us, come back next week, you'll hear the same message. The Apostle Paul on the Damascus
Road, whatever happened to him on that road, he never got over.
Have you got over it? Is it a wonder? Is it a marvel? My college years at Georgetown, what a messed up, confused young
man I was there. I was going to get my degree
there and play football there. I remember the day one of my
professors said that this thing of the virgin birth is a hoax.
that Jesus Christ, that Mary lived too near a Roman soldier
camp and at 13 she got pregnant by a soldier. I thought, well
that's not right. That can't be true. And then I was asked to preach
at one of the largest Southern Baptist churches in the state
of Kentucky that was denying the virgin birth. So I went out
there and preached that Jesus Christ was born of a virgin.
And again, I've got thrown out of more churches than you have
bars. And I wanna tell you this too,
I'm just being honest so you can see the grace of God. Ms. Pam and I got married, I didn't
know how to be a husband. Or a father for that matter.
Say, well pastor, you was raised in a pastor's home, I know I
was a PK kid. There seems to be a restlessness
in here, I think the devil doesn't want you to hear what I'm saying. You see, I'm telling you all
of this because I know some of you are almost ready to give
up. I mean, you've had some very dark days in your life. Very,
very dark days. I mean, sometimes I hear some
of your stories and think, oh, thank you, God, I didn't have
to go through what they went through. And where would any
of us be were it not for the grace of God? Many of you in here live daily
with what you've done or what has been done to you.
Can I get a witness on that? What you've done or what has
been done to you. And you're at a point where you're
ready to give up. I mean, you turned to drugs and
talked about getting high, but you really weren't getting high,
you were getting lower. Drugs never have lifted you,
but there is one who can lift you and does. The songwriter said, from sinking
sands he lifted me, with tender hands he lifted me, from shades
of night to planes of light, oh, praise his name, he lifted
me. Some of you in here doubt your salvation. First of all,
I want to remind you, it's not your salvation, it's His salvation.
But you doubt it. And your reasoning is, I'm not
good enough. Your reasoning is, I sold my
body. Your reasoning is, I was raped. Your reasoning is, it's not grace
reasoning. I wish I could preach today.
I really do. I feel my own inadequacy to talk
about the grace of God. And surely somebody here is going
to say this, you know, he believes you can live like hell and still
go to heaven. You know, I believe this, in my flesh dwells no good
thing and I ought to go to hell except for the grace of God.
I do believe that. Salvation is by grace. I was
listening to some songs last night. Bill Gaither wrote these
words. Something beautiful, something
good. All my confusion he understood. All I had to offer him was brokenness
and strife. But he made something beautiful
of my life. Do you believe he can do that?
I know he can do that. You can't get your head stuck
in your belly button. You can't be remembering the
past all the time. For sure, you'll be shooting
up. Some of you who are religious will go back to salvation by
works, like the churches of Galatia. You've got to get some peace
and rest, and so you seek an alternative force rather than
the grace of God. But it is grace. It is unmerited
favor. It's undeserved. It's what God
does for you. All by himself. Thank God you
and I have no part in it. See, I can't believe you said
that, preacher. Too late, I've already said it. Here's what the Bible says. The
book of Romans says this, where sin did abound, anybody in here
have had in your past, I mean, sin was just running rapid. The rest of you are liars. It even amazed you what you were
doing. You were a runaway. Here's what the scripture said,
where sin did abound. Oh, I know there's some of you
in here going like this, pastor, you just have no idea what I've
done. You have no idea, pastor. You were a nice little preacher's
kid raised in church. You just have no idea. Yeah, but I've been over at grace
centers for 30 some years. People are prone to come to me
and say things like this, Pastor, you just, I wish I could tell
you about, I'm so ashamed. And actually all of that is boring
to me. Hurry up and get to it because
I got good news for you. Sounds like you're a mess. Sounds
like you're a sinner. Hey, Christ Jesus came into the
world to save sinners. Jesus didn't come into the world
to beat you. He came to save you. I feel so guilty, pastor. I'm
so guilty. Oh, shut up. Jesus paid it all,
all the debt you owe. Sin had left the crimson stain.
He washed it white as snow. We had a guy around here that
broke into my office and stole church checks and cashed them. But I used to love to hear him
sing this song. Time measured out my days, life
carried me along. In my soul I yearned to follow
God, but knew I'd never be so strong. I looked hard at this
world to learn how heaven would be gained, just to end where
I began, where human effort is all in vain. Were it not for
grace, I can tell you where I'd be, wandering down some pointless
road to nowhere, with my salvation up to me." It's very, very true. Were it not for grace, I know where I'd be, and I know
where you'd be. How about this one we used to
sing in the old church? Marvelous grace of our loving
Lord, grace that exceeds our sin and our guilt. yonder on
Calvary's mount outpoured, there where the blood of the Lamb was
spilled. Grace, grace, God's grace, grace that will pardon
and cleanse within. Grace, grace, God's grace, grace
that is greater than all my sin. Sin and despair, like the sea
waves cold, threaten the soul with infinite loss. Grace that
is greater, yes, grace untold, points to the refuge, the mighty
cross. Dark is the stain that I cannot
hide. What can we do to wash it away? Look! There is flowing a crimson
tide, Brighter than snow you may be today, Marvelous, infinite,
matchless grace, Freely bestowed on all who believe, You that
are longing to see His face, Will you look this moment to
His grace receive? And then a contemporary writes,
Grace that won't let go. I know some of you in here, you
haven't grown yet in grace, so you probably feel a little like
this. I'm just barely hanging on. I mean, I've relapsed 14
times. You may have one more in you
because in your flesh dwells no good thing. Say, Pastor, you
don't think that people who relapse are saved. Those who realize
they relapsed and are sorry for their sins, yeah, I think they're
saved. And I'll just tell you, there's nobody but relapsers
in here. Nobody. Grace that won't let go. The
songwriter wrote, sometimes I'm strong. Sometimes I'm weak. Sometimes I fall in my wandering. But through it all, there's just
one thing more precious than the air I breathe. Listen to
this. Grace, amazing grace, unfailing
grace that saves my soul. Grace, unending grace, unrelenting
grace that won't let go. You took our sin, you took our
stain, you took our guilt, now there is no shame. This our reward,
eternal crown, the endless song, how sweet the sound, amazing
grace. That's the truth. Now, I deliberately tried to
paint this black picture where you can all feel and sense There's only one way, and that's
by the grace of God. And I'm gonna give you three
points that I've preached all over this country and for 50
some years, and what got thrown me out of churches, but has always
been good news to me. Your salvation begins with God. He said, well, of course, pastor.
No, no, here's what I mean. He chose you before the foundation
of the world. Here's what I mean. He's the
author of the salvation with which you've been saved. He's
the author. And just so you know, He saw
you when you were 10. He saw what your dad did to you.
He saw what your mother did. He saw what uncle did. He saw
all of the sexual craziness that's totally black as all hell. Man
is totally depraved. And yet, the one who perhaps
molested you, I mean, we're just getting honest today. God skipped
past him. God could have saved him or her. But instead, in all of your confusion
growing up from a child, and you didn't understand all that
sexual stuff. None of it. And life has just
been so down for you. You're so guilt-ridden. Maybe you have no idea how to
be a mother, or what a mother and dad really are like. Can
you imagine the, it's hard for me to, I had some, I had a lot
of dysfunction, religious dysfunction in my own home. And one of the
big things with me was all of the guilt that was put on me
in church. And then I hear some of your stories, and you've been
to church too, and it was just constant guilt motivation. I'm
telling you, that is not the message of the Bible. The message
of the Bible is unmerited favor, undeserved favor. And your sins
are gone, they're washed away, they're blotted out. God is the
author, and His eye was on you all the time. How many of you
should have been dead a long time ago? About half of you in
here should have been dead. The places you went, the things
you do and did should have been dead a long time ago. But his
eyes on the sparrow and he watched over you. You were chosen by
him before the foundation of the world. That's amazing grace. Some of you know just enough
about the Bible to be crazy. You say, I hope you're not talking
about predestination and election. I am! Because without God's predestination,
wild thing, you would have never come to faith in Jesus Christ.
You never would have. I like to say, I'm so glad He
predestined me. I am. I love to talk about it,
that this God is the author and finisher of my faith, and this
grace will not let me go. He's not going to throw me out
of the will because I relapsed. He's not going to take me out
of the will because of something someone else did to me. I have
all of this mess and guilt and so forth, but I'm in the will.
I do that I do know this for whom he did for no he also did
predestinate and whom he predestinated They'll me also called and whom
he called they'll me also justified and whom he justified they'll
me also glorified I am persuaded that neither life nor death nor
principalities nor powers nor crack cocaine nor heroin nor
mama nor daddy nor fornication nor adultery nor Homosexuality
shall separate me from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus
I am positive about that So this salvation begins by God
choosing and He didn't choose you because you were good No
This church. I always laugh when I think about
the church being under construction Because he's putting things in
his house. I would never have in mine. I Ugly, ugly, ugly. He takes ugly things, the lowborns,
the nobodies of this world, searches them out and makes something
beautiful out of their life. The apostle Paul said, but when
it pleased God who separated me from my mother's womb, If
God was going to kill you for what you were going to do, you
could have been stillborn. God is not walking around, you
know, flapping people. God is actively saving his people
from their sins. I love this. He who hath begun
a good work in you. You know, a few minutes ago,
I told you about when I was four or five at the screen door, my
pet goat. I do know this. I know this for
sure. God began a good work. I don't
know exactly where he began the good work, but I know that if
I was thinking about God going through that screen door with
the pet goat behind me, and I can remember it now at nearly 74
years old, God did something for that little boy at four or
five. I don't know how that happened.
Somebody said, well, you have to be saved I didn't know theology
then. I don't know much now. I keep looking into this grace
and I'm more and more amazed. And over the 50 years I've been
preaching, people have tried to tell me, you know, you need
to get, you need to go a little further. You know, you need to,
all kinds of preachers have told me that stuff. It's, you know,
you can go overboard on this. I want to go overboard. I wanna go overboard. This is
a good word, prevenient grace. You know what prevenient grace
is? It's grace before conversion. You know how many times God went
to the crack house with you? You know how many times you've
been laying in an alley or how many times God went to church
with you? And the whole preaching was off
course. God could have left you a Catholic
Baptist Presbyterian and let you go to hell. But somehow or another, somehow
or another in the providence of God, he started a fight in
the church and you left. And somehow or another, you said
something like, I'm not going back to church ever. I've had
it with church. I can't tell you how many times
I have quit, but that provenient grace. Grace before grace, grace
before I was converted. See, some of you in here came
over here, you thought just by accident, or mom and dad brought
you over here. You think everything that's happening
in your life is just a coincidence. You even think you got lucky.
I mean, you say all kinds of stupid stuff about when all the
time there's an unseen hand. God Almighty, who saw you little
alley rat, saw you little pitiful young woman selling your body,
shooting up, saw you guys that don't even know who you are,
and His hand was on you. And God even used meth to let
you run your course. And look where you ended up,
of all places, at a homeless show. With a crazy Kentucky hillbilly
pastor who screams and yells. And for the first time in your
life, you heard about this marvelous grace. And something happened
on the inside. You were truly given spiritual
life by the Holy Spirit. You were regenerated. You were
quickened. And immediately you thought to
yourself, shh. Over there in one of those bunks. Nobody even hardly knew your
name. Up the street in the women's
center. You thought nobody cared for your soul, but there was
one. There was one who cared for you, one who loved you with
an everlasting love, and one who was tenderly drawing you
to himself. And now some of you sit here
because God who began the work, sent the Holy Spirit to regenerate
you, saved you, regenerated you, born you again, and you sit here
now and you teach Sunday school. Isn't that something? You're
out there helping them wash cars. You're actually on staff. You're a part of something awesome
and wonderful. A God thing is going on. Not a perfect place because this
place has warts. We all have our warts. But at the end, God has done
great things for us. Let me tell you about all your
good works. I'm about through here. Let me tell you about your
good works. This is what really got me thrown
out of the Baptist church. What I'm about to tell you got
me thrown out. Anything that's good that comes out of you or
me, God put it in us. If there's anything good comes
out of me, it was grace that put it in me. and gave me the
ability to do it. The apostle said this in the
book of Hebrews. Make you perfect in every good
work to do his will, working in you. Do you know you do the will of
God? I hear people say, I just want to do the will of God. That's
good. That really is good. But the end of the story is this,
God works in you. His will in you. Every good and
perfect gift comes down from God. I am what I am by the grace
of God. And that grace is going to take
me all the way. We're his workmanship. We're
God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works,
which God hath before ordained, predestinated, that we should
walk in them. And we do. So today, as you go
your way, I want you to think about this. Oh, to grace, how
great a debtor. Daily, I'm constrained to be. Here I am at nearly 74, heaven bound. I'm heaven bound. I'm a crazy, dirty old man. Because in my flesh dwells no
good thing. But grace has me surrounded. I pray something like this almost
every day, Lord, don't let me do something stupid. And I usually do, but I still
ask him, please, Lord, keep me. See, your stories, I know you
think, some of you think your stories are breathtaking and
absolutely horrible, but you're not unique in your stories. Say, I just, I don't think this
has ever happened to anybody else. Already happened. Already
happened. There is no unique sins on the
top of this earth. They've all already happened.
And that's why we come together here and preach the good news,
the glad tidings that Jesus Christ came into the world and is the
savior of sinners. I was going to say this morning,
and I forgot to say it. You know, anytime you sense and
want to confess Christ when I'm preaching, you can just come
up here and, you know, you can fall down somewhere, or Miss
Pam will move and you can sit there, and when the service is
coming to a close like it is now, I'll find out why did you
come forward, and you can say something like this. I saw myself
a sinner, and Jesus Christ is my Savior. and I trusted him. I won't ask you, do you know
the books of the Bible? Have you ever been sprinkled
Dr. Porter? I won't ask you that. It'll just be good news to my
ears that you are trusting Jesus Christ alone. And what will happen
is we'll all be very happy to see you confess Christ. And all
of heaven will go berserk. Do you know heaven goes berserk
and it's party time in heaven when one sinner acknowledges
faith in Jesus Christ? Amen. So be real still now. I want
to see how strong the Spirit of God is here. I just wonder if there's someone
who's trusted Christ today. and you've seen it's all by grace.
Will you just stand up if you trust in Christ? Stand up where
you are. Amen. Thank you for that. Thank
you for that. Thank you for that. Amen. Amen, amen. All right,
you may be seated. Well, about 30 of you. That's
awesome. That's awesome. If you trusted
Christ today because of him, he was here, he did something
on your inside, and he's gonna take you all the way, that's
a glorious truth. Now, we're gonna have the memorial supper,
and those of you who trusted Christ are invited to partake
of the memorial supper. And then next Sunday, we're going
to baptize those who have trusted Christ and wanna publicly confess
him. What I'd like for us to do, Dwayne,
are you here? All right, what I want us to
do is, oh, you're up there. All right, what I want us to
do is stand and sing, and I want to give you opportunity to say,
I have trusted Christ, I am not depending on my works, my church, I'm trusting Christ alone, and
I want to say to the world in the baptismal pool that Jesus
died for me, was buried for me, and rose again for me. I want
to be immersed in water. It's a public confession. It's
a picture of who you're trusting. in his doing and dying. That
water will not save you. In fact, there's bugs in there.
I looked, that baptismal pool is a little dirty and has some
spider webs. We'll try to get those out before
next Sunday. And then those of you who say
you wanna be immersed the following Sunday, I will meet with you
this Wednesday at six o'clock in the Luther Chapel and we'll
talk about it. I want to make sure you clearly
understand that that water doesn't say. But you are saying there's
a new me. I have the Spirit of God abiding
in me. I hate all of my sins, and I
love Jesus Christ alone. We'll talk about that. All right,
let's stand. If you want to be immersed next
Sunday, I invite you just to come forward hurriedly and we'll
move right along. We'll be out of here by 1230.
Just stand right here. Let me tell you how important
it is for you to enter into what I have told you today, that we
are saved by Christ alone. And I'm gonna read from the Corinthian
letter. Let a man examine himself and
so let him eat of that bread and drink of that cup. For he
that eateth and drinketh unworthily eateth and drinketh damnation
to himself, not discerning the Lord's body. For this cause many
are weak and sickly among you and many sleep. Now listen to
me and listen carefully. In many congregations across
this country and around the world, people are being taught that
this is the way you get Christ in you. You don't get Christ
in you by drinking his blood, which is the grape juice, or
eating the bread, which is a type of his body. And here's what
happened at the Corinthian church. They met to take the Lord's Supper,
and they all got drunk. That's what happened in the Corinthian
church. because they didn't use Mogan David grape juice. They
used the real stuff. And they got drunk, and Paul
said, don't you have your houses to eat and drink in? Don't be
doing that. And he said, when you come to
take the Lord's Supper, make sure you enter into it. Enter
into it. Don't take it in an unworthy
manner. Years ago when I was pastoring
in Kentucky, a lady said, I won't be back to church tonight because
you're taking the Lord's Supper and I don't feel worthy. And
I said to her, ma'am, you never were worthy. And there's no one
here worthy. What that means in the Corinthian
letter to take it in an unworthy manner, and some of you are dead,
and some of you are gonna get sick because you took it in an
unworthy manner. is you didn't enter into it.
When I see this bread, this unleavened bread, it's a type of His body
which was bruised for my sins, for my iniquities. The Bible
says His visage, His face, was mired beyond that of any man. sin, the punishment for my sin,
the wrath of God to satisfy justice on my behalf. And so, when we
take the bread, we contemplate that, that he was bruised for
our iniquities, and the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and
with his stripes we're healed. We're saved because of substitution. And when he had given thanks,
he breaketh, and said, Take ye, this is my body which is broken
for you, this do in remembrance of me. After the same manner also he
took the cup, and when he had sup, saying, This cup is the
new covenant in my blood. This do ye as oft as you drink
it in remembrance of me. Drink you all of it. All right. Let's sing a hymn
and we'll go home contemplating our Savior's death, burial, and
resurrection. which satisfied the just demands
of God's law and paid the penalty of our sin debt.