It's nice to be back here, so near to where we began all those years ago. And one of the challenges for us is, you know, are we a church? What is the gospel? And one of the challenges that we had, which I'm going to look at with you this morning is, you know, What do you do about the Lord's Supper? We waited and waited for some considerable time and we waited until people were baptised and we waited for other things, but also we just waited on the Lord and said, what's involved in the Lord's Supper? We just know how incredibly significant it is. We don't know how significant it really is, but we know that it's incredibly important.

And so it's as Simon prayed, and as we saw in Exodus chapter 14, it's a memorial. It's something to be done in remembrance of the Lord Jesus Christ. He says, do this. in remembrance of me. I put a poem from Joseph Hart and the last two lines are just so beautiful. It's at the beginning of your book and it says, and I think it's lovely that we sort of sing and go to poetry to sort of express the depths of feelings which seem to be so normally so inadequate for describing what happened and what the Lord's Supper is all about.

It's interesting to remember, isn't it, that as Simon read the The first Passover was just for the people of Israel and it was spoken privately to them. Moses was told by God, you go and speak to the children of Israel. You don't mention this to Egypt whatsoever. And throughout the next 1500 years of the life of nation Israel, they were both looking back and looking forward. They were looking back to the Passover and God's deliverance of them. They were looking forward to the true Passover.

The Lord Jesus Christ was the Passover. He is our Passover. But when the Lord Jesus Christ instituted the Lord's Supper, he was with a group of people almost exactly the size of this. And all around was a great religious world and enormous buildings in an amazing city and full of the most extraordinary number of people who were there, maybe a million, to celebrate the Passover. And yet the real Passover, and the real Passover meal was held in secret almost and yet we have it delivered unto us and it's something that's worth singing about. Let me read Joseph's heart hymn, it's in the front of your bulletins. Join every tongue to sing the mercies of the Lord, the love of Christ our King, let every heart record.

He saved us from the wrath of God and paid our ransom with his blood. What wondrous grace was this, We sinned and Jesus died. He wrought the righteousness and we are justified. We ran the score to length's extreme and all the debt was charged on him.

Hell was our just dessert and he that hell endured. guilt broke his guiltless heart with wrath that we incurred and i love this last line we bruised his body spilt his blood and both became our heavenly food we bruised his blood, and both became our heavenly food.

I'm afraid that the Lord might feed us this morning as we turn in our Bibles to 1 Corinthians 11, one of the challenges that we've had over the years, and when we first instituted the Lord's Supper we had all sorts of challenges about it. Surely any old bread will do. Surely grape juice is better than wine. Why are you being so particular about it? And then we've been told in the not-too-distant future that we need to be able to institute some means of examining people and seeing whether they're fit and proper persons to participate in the Lord's Supper. All of which is a complete and utter denial of what the Lord's Supper is, and all of it is completely contradicted by this passage before us.

I just love how clear the Word of God is. I'll read from verse 23, but it's good to be reminded of the rest of the context and Lord willing, we might have a chance to look at it. But listen to how Paul begins, for I received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you. Now that's a great description of all gospel preaching, isn't it? Something is received from the Lord. It's come from the Lord. He delivers it. He delivers it to his messenger. We receive it and we deliver it unto you.

I've got no interest in my opinion, I promise you. My opinions have failed on so many occasions. My best efforts have failed so many times. But I'm really interested and I want you to be interested in what God says about this. And this is God's declaration to Paul and to us of what the Lord's Supper is all about.

I deliver it unto you that the Lord Jesus, the same night in which he was betrayed, took bread, and when he had given thanks, he break it and said, take, eat, 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 supped, saying, This cup is the New Testament, the New Covenant, in my blood. This do ye, as oft as you drink it, in remembrance of me. So there are two, he takes, and he participates in the Lord's Supper. He participates first, and then he gives it to his disciples, and he says, you do this, this do, in remembrance of me. And this is the reason for it in verse 26.

For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, what's the whole purpose of it? You do show the Lord's death till he come. Now these following verses, if they haven't troubled you, they've certainly troubled me. And I don't know that there's an honest believer in all the world that hasn't been troubled by these verses.

Wherefore, whosoever shall eat this bread and drink this cup of the Lord unworthily shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. you are guilty of the murder of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the crime which is charged against humanity. Our crime is diocide. We have murdered God. And if we haven't got our hands on him, we have murdered him in our hearts.

But let man examine himself. and so let him eat of that bread and drink of that cup, because for he that eateth and drinketh unworthily eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord's body. What's the memorial? It's discerning the Lord's body. That's what we're doing as we have participated in the Lord's Supper. We are discerning the Lord's body. It's the Lord's Supper. It's not the supper of man, it's the Lord's Supper.

To go back in our context here in 1 Corinthians 11, verse 17, he said, Now in this I declare unto you, I praise you not, that you come together not for the better, but for the worse. I don't want that to be the case with us ever. I don't want to come together for the worst. I don't want that to be the portion of any of us here, any that we know, any that we love. For first of all, when you come together in church, I hear that there be divisions among you, and I partly believe it.

Verse 19, for there must be heresies among you. That word heresy means a choosing. Paul says, I have received, I have delivered anything other than what the scriptures say by the mouth of the apostles and by the mouth of his prophets. Anything other than that is a choosing. That's all it is, that is to choose, isn't it? I'll do it my way. There must be heresies among you, that they which are approved may be made manifest among you.

And when you come together therefore into one place, verse 20, it is not to eat the Lord's supper, for in eating everyone taketh before other of his own supper, and one is hungry and the other is drunken. What sort of a man? This is talking about a church. This is talking about the Corinthian church. What a mercy they had to have an apostle like Paul caring for them. What, have you not houses to eat and drink in? Despise ye the church of God, and shame them that have not. What shall I say unto you? Shall I praise you in this? I praise you not. So here are the serious warnings and this has happened in in the Corinthian church in the very early, early days where they had nothing but the very best of apostolic teaching.

They didn't have to choose between what sort of denomination they believed or what sort of doctrine they believed. They didn't have to come out of false so-called Christian religion, they came out of pagan religions, but they were taught the pure gospel and yet they corrupted this very, very special Passover meal and then what the Passover is finished and now it's the memorial. So the first thing I want us to know that this meal is a memorial and it's a memorial of a memorial ultimately and it's a memorial of a memorial of of the Passover in Egypt, and that Passover in Egypt is a great picture of the deliverance of God's people by the Lord Jesus Christ. And he partook of the last Passover meal. There's never been a decent one since. There's never been a God-ordained one since. They're finished.

And then, having done that, Having fulfilled that law, he then introduces this memorial. And the first Passover was in the houses of believing Jews, and not in all of Egypt, but then the first Lord's Supper was in this house, as I said earlier, unseen by the religious world. They weren't invited to it. They knew nothing of it. And yet this remarkable, remarkable memorial was instituted.

You remember the story in Exodus chapter 12. Moses was told, you speak to the congregation of Israel. You don't have to speak to Egypt about this at all. And then you are to take a lamb, a lamb 12 months of age in the full bloom and prime of life and that male lamb is to have no spot or blemish and you take that male into your house on the 10th day and you have that lamb in your house examined and in union with you and your family for four days. And then on that Passover evening, you and all the congregation of Israel, you kill that lamb. And that day was to be memorial.

And what a great picture of the Lamb of God, the first declaration of our Lord Jesus Christ is, behold the Lamb of God. Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. And before I go any further, we must remember that this Passover is a particular Passover declaring a particular death for a particular people. And so every time we mention that he is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, and the world has a particular meaning in all of the scriptures.

If he took away the sin of all of humanity, then all of humanity is saved. And we don't need to do what we're doing. There's nice places to go in this world. We're here because there is a particular death and there is a particular life that flows from that death.

And the Lord Jesus Christ is that Great Lamb. He came into this world, He was born of a woman, He was made of a woman, and He was made under the law. And He came in a body that God had prepared for Him. And he was examined, wasn't he? You think of the examination. He was examined as a baby. He was examined by Herod. He was examined and found wanting. He was examined by the law. He was examined by the civil government. Even Pilate himself in the Centurion said, this man is a righteous man. He was examined by the religious world.

He put himself up before this religious world and they examined him and examined him and they criticized him and they condemned him and they watched him like a whore. Isn't it wonderful to think that our Lamb was so closely examined, not for four days, but for three and a half years He was closely examined. He was examined by Satan and finally he was set forth by his father and he was obedient and he was perfectly faithful unto the death, the death of the cross. It's the lamb slain in the evening and his blood shed and his blood was shed and displayed for God to see.

It's one of the most comforting verses in all the scriptures, isn't it? God says, when I see the blood, I will pass over you. And now we have this meal, this meal of remembrance. He says, this is the new testament, the new covenant in my blood. It's a meal of remembrance, it's a meal, a memorial to proclaim. What are we doing? It says, We proclaim, we do show, verse 26, we do show the Lord's death until he comes. Every time we participate in the Lord's Supper, we're showing his death till he comes.

We're showing that by his broken body we remember the deliverance from sin and from Satan, from the law and from darkness and blindness, from Satan's religion in natural man, which cries peace, peace, when there is no peace. We have deliverance too. We have deliverance from all of those things which would break fellowship with Him. And we have deliverance to Him, to fellowship with Him, union with Him, communion with Him, communion with all of His people. We have communion and union with Him now. And when we leave this world, God's children don't change their company.

They just get to see Him. They just get to see Him as He is. We proclaim his death till he come. There's coming a time, a glorious time, when we will see him as he is. Read the promises of John. Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, 1 John 3. That we should be called the sons of God. Therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not. Beloved, now, right now, we are. the sons of God, and it does not yet appear what we shall be. It doesn't look like anything. It didn't look like anything. If you were there in Jerusalem, you wouldn't have known the Last Supper was being instituted at all. You wouldn't have known the significance of it. The disciples didn't know. The Lord has to open our hearts. That's what he did on those two men on the road to Emmaus, isn't he? He prayed and he broke the bread, and in breaking the bread, he opened their eyes to see.

It doesn't appear what we shall be, but we know, verse two of 1 John 3, when he shall appear, listen to this, till he come, we shall be like him. for we shall see him as he is. As he is. So we're proclaiming his death. That's what it is. It's a memorial, isn't it? It's a memorial and it's a proclamation until his death. Let's go back to 1 Corinthians 11, verse 24.

And when he had given thanks, He break it. I love the fact that he break it. He break this bread. And he says, take, eat. This is my body, which is broken for you. This do in remembrance of me. Take and eat. Take and eat. This is my body. This is, by the way, one of the accusations against the early Christians, because they quoted these words over and over and over again, that they were considered to be cannibals by the pagans of their time. The Lord is painting always a spiritual picture. There's a spiritual reality in these things. I love the little words of Scripture. I pray that we love them and grow to love them even more.

But one of the loveliest of the little words in Scripture is this particular word, for. Often for means because. But this for, his body is broken for you, and literally what it means is for one's safety, for one's advantage or benefits. It means one who does a thing for another, and he does it all, he does all of it. It literally means to be someone who is bending over to shield or to protect or to defend one.

And that's exactly what happened on the cross of Calvary. That's exactly what we're proclaiming in the Lord's death. That He, He and all who are in union with Him, the infinite, eternal wrath of God Almighty fell on the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross of Calvary. And He absorbed the wrath and took away forever the reason for the wrath. He took away the sin. The sin is gone. We are remembering a deliverance. We're remembering Him and we're proclaiming, we're showing His death till He comes. This do, not do anything else, this do. That's why we have unleavened bread and wine and no other.

What's leaven do? Leaven puffs up. Why do they use unleavened bread? The Israelites, as they left Egypt, they had to have a whole week where they examined their houses to make sure there wasn't a single drop of leaven in there. Leaven represents sin. But what does sin do?

It puffs up. That's what it does in bread. It puffs up. And that's why we have unleavened bread. That's why the unleavened bread represents the sinless, perfect body of the Lord Jesus Christ. We're proclaiming his death. It was the death of a perfect lamb, a spotless lamb.

And we drink wine and not grape juice. Grape juice was only introduced in the 17th or 18th century, although I'm concerned about people becoming alcoholics because they had the Lord's Supper. Wine is a beautiful picture of the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ because on the outside of the grape there is yeast just in the air and settles on the grape and in the process of fermentation the yeast consumes all the sugar in the grape until the yeast is no more. the dead yeast is gone and so his body is a sinless body and his food.

It's a new covenant. It is the new covenant in his blood. You do this as often as you... This cup, this cup that we drink is the New Testament, the new covenant in my blood. I'll just read you some verses out of Hebrews chapter 8, and you can turn there if you wish, but these are glorious verses. They are a declaration of what was written in the Old Testament by the hand of Jeremiah, and you can read about it in Jeremiah 31. But listen to what the Lord says.

But now he hath obtained a more excellent ministry, by how much also he is the mediator of a better covenant, which is established upon better promises. For if that first covenant had been faultless, there should no place have been sought for the second. But where was the fault? The fault wasn't with God, the fault wasn't with the covenant, the fault was with the people, for finding fault with them.

He saith, Behold, the day is come, saith the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not according to the covenant I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand and to lead them out of the land of Egypt, because they continued not in my covenant and I regarded them not, saith the Lord.

For this is the covenant, this is the covenant that we are celebrating. This is the death, this is the, the remembrance that we have when we celebrate the Lord's Son. But this is the covenant that I will make with the House of Israel after those days, saith the Lord.

I will put my laws into their mind and write them on their hearts. And I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people. And they shall not teach every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord, listen to this covenant, for all shall know me from the least to the greatest. For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness and their sins and their iniquities. I will remember no more. Why can't he remember them? because on the cross of Calvary they are gone altogether.

God's children stand before him right now in the Lord Jesus Christ as people who have never sinned. All of their sins were laid upon the Lord Jesus Christ. And it's the justice of God that slew him. And it's the justice and the holiness and the faithfulness of God, which is the comfort of God's people. And that's what we're declaring when we participate in the Lord's Supper. We're declaring his death till he come. We show his death till he comes.

And so just to go back to 1 Corinthians, there are a couple of vital issues that have weighed on the minds of many of the saints of God, and I pray that they have weighed on your minds and caused you to go to God and ask, what on earth does it mean to drink unworthily?

And what does it mean for a man to examine himself? There are a lot of religious traditions where they want to use the Lord's Supper as a means of church discipline and a means of examination of other people. What does God say? Let a man, verse 28, let a man examine himself. You can't examine my heart and I can't examine yours. And if you could see what was in my heart, you would scurry from here as quickly as you possibly could. That's why we esteem others better than ourselves, because we have an inkling, only a little inkling, of what's in us. And we look at others and think, aren't they amazing? Look at my brothers and sisters. Aren't they amazing?

Look what God's done in their lives. Look how God has kept them faithful. Look how God has taken them through all of these trials that Simon was talking about. Look how God has kept them looking to him and kept them faithful. Let a man examine himself. and listen to what God goes on to say.

Verse 28, let a man examine himself and so eat of that bread and drink of the cup. The examination is not to stop people from eating and drinking. The examination is for us to have a right and just assessment of who we are and what we are doing and who the Lord Jesus Christ is and what he has done It's to remember Him in faithfulness.

It's to remember Him. But listen to this challenge in these verses from 27 on. of the blood, the body and the blood of the Lord. I don't want to be guilty of the blood and the blood of the Lord at all. I don't want anyone to have to bear that guilt upon themselves.

And verse 29, for he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself. And what's the issue? What's the issue in the examination and what's the issue in in the unworthy eating and drinking. Listen to it. Not discerning the Lord's body. Not discerning. So what's the issue for examination? What's the issue for eating and drinking worthily?

It's discerning the body of the Lord. It's discerning what he did in his body, why he came in a body, what he's doing in a body right now, what he will do in his body when he comes. To discern means to understand. It means to make a judgment so as to determine. It's not examination and it's not eating and drinking unworthily because my feelings are not sufficiently solemn that I haven't shed sufficient tears of repentance.

When I was a little fella, the Presbyterian church in town used to have communion once the Lord's Supper, whatever they called it, I forget now. But they had it once every three months and they would send round to all of the the sort of members, they would send a little envelope and you'd get a special invitation. You had three months and it was part of the tradition of the Presbyterians and other reform type people that you actually are to spend a whole lot of time examining yourself and making sure that your life is right before God. In some of the Presbyterian circles in Scotland in the old days, they'd have it once a year because you can't have it too often because we can't let people become too familiar with remembering the body and the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.

It's going on today all over the place and it's just completely and utterly contrary to what the scriptures say. It's completely and utterly contrary to what the whole purpose of the Lord's of eating and drinking the Lord's Supper is. It's not about whether my life is sufficiently holy for me to drink worthily. In the old Reformed days, they would have to examine themselves and examine themselves and they'd have to make sure that they're absolutely perfect and hadn't had any sort of sinful and wicked thoughts and been Sabbath keepers and do all these other things. That's the opposite to what is involved in the Lord's Supper. You're never going to be sufficiently holy to make yourself to be worthy to drink. That is to drink unworthily. It's not to think that you can by your doing make yourselves worthy. That's a denial of what this supper is about. That's what the Corinthians were doing. So let him eat.

We are encouraged in this meal of remembrance to look in one place to one person and one person's life and one person's death and we are to look at it in light of all of what the rest of the scriptures say. And it goes without saying to you people, but not to many, many others throughout this world, that anyone who presents the body of the Lord Jesus Christ as if it was offered to all humanity, or that it was an attempt by God to save all humanity, is to eat and drink unworthily. While you're in 1 Corinthians, turn down to chapter 12 and let me see what it is in the context, part of the context of this scripture. It says in verse 3 of chapter 12, it says, Wherefore I give you to understand that no man speaking by the Spirit of God calleth Jesus accursed. Have you ever heard that? No, man, I haven't heard anyone say that. I've heard some pagan people speak in those sort of ways.

What is it to be accursed of God? It's to suffer the wrath of God without there being any reward for it. or anything achieved by it. That's what it is to be accursed, isn't it? So anyone, anyone who denies the absolute perfect sufficiency of the death of the Lord Jesus Christ to put away all the sins of all of the people who are united to him eternally, no matter what fancy language they use, by what they say and what fancy language they use, by what they don't say, They are eating and drinking unworthily. And they are guilty. They are guilty of the body and blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.

What's my self-examination? Can I say to Paul, God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of my Lord Jesus Christ. God forbid. That's my self-examination. Do I look to Christ only for all of my salvation? Do I look to Christ only for all of my sanctification? Do I look to Christ only for all of my redemption? Do I look to Christ only for all of my acceptance with God? For all of my union, for all of my fellowship, do I look to Him alone to carry me through all this world? If He is all your salvation, then eat and drink in faith. That's what it is to discern His body. What did He do in His body? Why did He come in His body? Was my debt paid in His body? What happened on the cross at Calvary?

What does 1 Corinthians 5.21 say?

For He, God the Father, has made Him sin for us and there's that lovely for again and there's the us there's the particularity of it who knew no sin he knew no sin we know sin so well that we don't even know that it's sin he knew no sin that we might be listen to it made the righteous in Him? Is my righteousness a righteousness that's completely made by Him and wrought out by Him? Was all of my debt placed on Him? All of what I owed God, all of what I owed God's Holy Lord, was it all placed on Him? Is all of my justification in His body and His obedience?

The wonderful thing about the Gospel and the wonderful thing about the Lord's Supper If I'm discerning that it's all in his body and not in mine, then I'm caused to look away and remember a body that came into this world, a body that God the Father had prepared for him, a body that was able to die. How can God die? I have no idea. We are talking all those things that are way, way, way too much for us. How could he bear the infinite load of all the sins of all of God's people in his own body on the tree? Only God Almighty can do that. The great glorious transaction in his body is a transaction between God and God. It's a glorious body. And it's the body that's coming soon. It's a glorious body that sits on the throne of this universe right now.

As the glorious body, which according to Ephesians chapter 2, we are seated So the main object is a remembrance. It's a remembrance of a broken body. It's a remembrance of the shed blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's remembering what happened at the cross and why it happened. It's remembering what was achieved in his body. We've just read it. He put away the sins of all of his people.

So eating and drinking represents an act of faith. isn't it? We eat and drink by faith. By faith Moses observed the Passover. It's by faith that we receive Christ. That's the beauty of the Lord's Supper, isn't it? It's a great picture of Christ in you. When we go from here, no one will know that we ever meet that we've participated in the Lord's Supper.

But we know by faith that our life is going to be sustained And because it comes into us, it comes into every part of us. It affects our walk, it affects our hands, it affects our mind. We remember Christ in you, the hope of glory. Listen to what he promises. To discern the Lord's body is to go to John chapter six and say, amen, amen, amen. When the whole crowd walks away, you say, amen, I'm staying here. I've got nowhere else to go, says Peter. I've got nowhere else to go. Thousands have other places to go. Listen to what he says.

Whosoever eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal life and I will raise him up at the last day. That's a promise. That's what he did in his body. This, John 6, 58, this is the bread which came down from heaven, not as your fathers did eat manna and are dead. He that eateth this bread shall live forever. I'm interested in that.

Eating and drinking represents an act of faith. Eating and drinking shows our utter dependence upon him. We're completely dependent on his sacrifice, his sin offering to his father, him being the way, the truth, and the life. In eating and drinking I'm saying that the Lord Jesus Christ in him crucified is all my hope.

I can't keep God's law. I can't live a perfect life. I can't love him as I will do or love you as I will do. But he did and by his grace I I have eternal life. By believing in him, by eating and drinking, I can receive Christ, this Christ, into my heart. What do I examine about myself? Am I a sinner? Thank God Christ Jesus came into this world to save sinners. Do I look only to Him for all I'll ever need before God? When He declared, it is finished, is that the joy of my heart? He said it's finished. And can I live spiritually on His broken body and shed blood? We bruised his body, spilled his blood, and both became our heavenly food.

Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we do pray that as we participate in these emblems of remembrance, we would remember your dear and precious son and why he came and what happened on the cross of Calvary and the wonderful, wonderful effects that flow forever out of that wonderful, an extraordinary event, Heavenly Father. We pray that we would be made to find and to treat His blood as precious, and His broken body as precious, as very life to our eternal souls. Heavenly Father, cause us to examine ourselves in light of what You say in the Scriptures and not what we have in our own minds. and cause us, Heavenly Father, to do it in such a way that we are declaring and proclaiming and showing forth the death of your Son till he come. Help us to be excited about him coming, Heavenly Father, and us being united to him. in a glorious, physical, eternal, spiritual, wondrous union for ever and ever. What a Saviour. May we eat and drink in faith, eat and drink worthily, looking to Him alone. We praise you Heavenly Father for such a Saviour and such an amazing salvation for sinners such as us. Bless us for Christ's sake we pray ever. Amen.