For a scripture reading this
morning, turn with me to 1 Corinthians 11. 1 Corinthians 11, let's begin
with verse 17. Now in this that I declare unto
you, I praise you not, that you come together not for the better,
but for the worse. For first of all, when you come
together in the church, I hear that there be divisions among
you, and I partly believe it. For there must be also heresies
among you, that they which are proved may be made manifest among
you. When you come together, therefore,
into one place, this is not to eat the Lord's supper, For in
eating every one taketh before other his own supper. One is
hungry, another is drunken. What, have ye not houses to eat
and to drink in? Or 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. For I have
received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, that
the Lord Jesus, the same night in which he was betrayed, took
bread, not cookies, not crackers, bread. What kind of bread? Unleavened bread. He took bread, and when he had
given thanks, he breaketh 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 in my blood. This do ye, as oft as ye drink
it, in remembrance of me. For as often as ye eat this bread,
and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord's death till he cometh. Wherefore, whosoever shall eat
this bread, and drink this cup of the Lord unworthily, shall
be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord. But 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. And for this cause many are weak
and sickly among you, and many sleep. For if we would judge
ourselves, we should not be judged. If you will, turn back with me
to our text in 1 Corinthians 11. In just a little while, I want us
to observe the Lord's table according to His commandment. I don't know how long. Somebody
asked me how long it's been since we had our last communion. I
don't know. I don't know, but it's been quite
a while. And while we're not commanded as to how often we
partake of this ordinance, we are commanded to keep it. And
for the believer, it's not a grievous commandment. Oh, no, we have
to take the Lord's Supper. No, it's not grievous. It's not
grievous. It's been a while since I've
taught on the subject, and so I felt led of God to bring some
things to our attention this morning before we partake of
this beautiful ordinance. I have five things here in chapter
10 and 11 concerning our self-examination. Let a man examine himself. Not a committee. A lot of churches
have committees. And they keep track of who comes
to the meetings and how often and who is regular in their tithing,
if you believe in tithing, and on and on it goes. And they look
at men's personal righteousness and their faithfulness and then
they judge them worthy or unworthy to partake of this table. Well, I have five things concerning
our self-examination and actual participation in this ordinance. The first is this, a clear declaration
of our hope in Christ. Look with me one page back from
our text over in 1 Corinthians chapter 10 and verse 1. Moreover, brethren, I would not
that you should be ignorant, how that all our fathers were
under the cloud." What's he talking about? He's talking about Israel
when they came out of Egypt. Picture of all God's elect. Picture
of deliverance. They were all under the cloud,
the cloud of God's presence, and they all passed through the
sea. They were all baptized. that
is, in the sea, unto Moses, in the cloud, and in the sea. And they did all eat the same
spiritual meat, they did all drink the same spiritual drink,
for they drank from that spiritual rock that followed them, and
that rock was Christ. Now in these four verses, Paul
defines our hope in Christ It is in our union with Him. We are one with the Lord Jesus
Christ. What is it that qualifies us
this morning to partake of the wine and of the bread of the
Lord's table? What qualifies us? We're in union
with Christ. He's my righteousness. Of God
are you in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us. Now listen,
what do you need? Wisdom. What else? Righteousness. What else? Sanctification. What else? Redemption. He made unto us those
things. Does that qualify me to? Yes. Yes, because I'm in union with
him. I see myself being one with Him. That's my hope. Christ in you,
the hope of glory. God chose us in Him before the
foundation of the world, and our election in Christ was necessary
for our acceptance with God. He says He chose us in Him that
we might be holy. God's holy. You're not going
to come to God apart from true holiness, and you can't produce
it. But He chose us in Christ that
we might be holy. He chose us in Christ that we
might be without blame. No blame. Who's going to lay anything to
the charge of God's elect? God justifies. Christ dies. And He chose us in Christ that
we might always be before Him being loved. That we were predestinated under
the adoption of children by Jesus Christ Himself according to the
good pleasure of His will and all of this to the praise of
the glory of His grace wherein He made us accepted in the blood.
We have one hope, Russell. We're in union with Christ. If
I'm not in union with Him, I have no hope. Everything God has for
sinners is in His Son. The only way I can be partaker
of that is that God has put me in union with Him. Salvation is the work of God
who put us into an eternal union with His Son. And therefore,
we are partakers of all those benefits. And in this union is
clearly typified in ancient Israel and their deliverance out of
Egypt. their preservation in the wilderness, their power to
overcome their enemies in the promised land. However, there were some who
appeared with them and were to some degree partakers of the
benefits of God's Israel. But over time they manifested
their rebellion and their carcasses fell in the wilderness. And so
it is with the true salvation by grace. Salvation is by union
with Christ, and salvation is by grace through faith. That's
how that union is manifested. I know your election of God,
because our gospel came unto you. And when it did, it didn't
come in word only, it came in power, it came in the Holy Ghost,
it came in a transformation. You become a new man in Christ. perceived salvation of God in
Christ. And it puts all of its trust
in God. God's purpose, and God's Son,
and God's providence, and God's sovereign grace. That hope is
defined by the preaching of the apostles. Here it is, Christ
in you. The hope of glory. And you cannot examine yourselves
as to being in the faith if you're not in the faith. and know what
faith is. How are you going to examine
yourself? That would be like putting somebody on trial and
nobody saying anything and then you arrive at a judgment. How
are you going to examine yourself if you don't know what it's about? Alright, here's the second thing
we need to consider. The ordinance itself. Our Lord
left the church with two ordinances. Baptism and the Lord's table. And baptism is an ordinance given
to confess our faith in Christ. It's really, and I feel bad that
we don't have the means to do so, but it's really a public
declaration. We're to be baptized out here
where everybody, people driving up and down the road will look
over here and see you being baptized. It was a public ordinance. And
that's why Paul said some of you were baptized unto death.
What's he talking about? When the public sees you do this,
and it's totally contrary to what they believe and what back
in that day they were martyred, they were put to death. Cast
into lion's dens and just made a spectacle of out in an arena. But in this ordinance is pictured
our union with Christ in His death, burial, and resurrection,
buried with Him by baptism into death, that like as, here's the
picture, that like as Christ was raised from the dead by the
glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness
of life. In Romans 6, 5, for if we've
been planted together in the likeness of His death, we shall
also be in the likeness of His resurrection. Nothing in the realm of religion
has been distorted like the ordinances given to the church. Baptism
is for believers. That's why we call it believers'
baptism. It's not done by proxy. It's not done as to some promissory act whereby
babies are set apart and devoted to God, giving them a step up
on salvation. That's an abomination to God.
Baptizing babies. It's not an act of sprinkling,
but an act of burying. We're buried. I don't know how
many times he says that. You can't picture a barrel sprinkling. Huh? That's something you do
to flowers when you plant them. You don't do that to people.
They're buried. Buried in baptism. Colossians
2.12. Buried with him in baptism were
also you risen with him. How? Through the faith of the
operation of God who has raised him from the dead. The same God
that raised him from the dead raises us up. Raises us up. And we're baptized. We confess
that faith that God's given us and we walk in newness of life. It's a public act and one for
which some have marked themselves out for martyrdom. And then the
second ordinance is the Lord's Supper. That's what we're going
to partake of this morning, Lord Willard. And this ordinance is
given to the church to remind us of the body and blood of Christ. We, we, what's the word? Celebrate. That might be a good
word. We celebrate his death and his
resurrection. That's our hope. After passing out the bread and
the wine, our Lord said, this do in remembrance of me. Look
here, 1 Corinthians 11, 26. For as often as you eat this
bread and drink this cup, you do show the Lord's death till
he come. And unlike baptism, the Lord's
table is a private ordinance. We don't go out here in the yard
and partake of this supper before the passing vehicles. He said, now you go talk to this
man and tell him that the Lord has need of a room. And that
man did. He had a room, and it was all
prepared, and when they went there, they had the supper. It's for believers. And it's to constantly remind
us of his death, the death of our substitute, salvation through
a representative man, the Lord Jesus Christ. 1 John 5, 11, it said, This is
the record that God hath given to us eternal life, and this
life is in his Son. He that hath the Son hath life. He that hath not the Son of God
hath not life. What's he got? He's got what
he was born with. A natural mind, a natural heart. He that hath the Son hath life. Our Lord first instructed the
supper, and these are His words. He broke the bread and gave thanks
for it and said, Take, eat, for this is my body which was broken
for you. This do. in remembrance of me. And the same with the wine, saying
this cup is the New Testament in my blood, this do ye as oft
as ye drink it in remembrance of me. And the elements are very
simple, so that there's no reason for any substitution or misrepresentations. Wine is wine and bread is bread,
is it not? There's no room for error here.
The error is in here. It's in the heart of men who
see some kind of self-righteousness. This is contrary to their self-righteousness. They can't have wine, so they
drink grape juice. Our Lord was not called a grape
juice bibber. He's called a wine bibber. Why?
Because he drank wine. And this whole thing about wine
and alcohol in our day is so blown out of shape. This supper
wasn't for alcoholics. These things represent, they're
telling a story. And we're so ignorant, I don't
know why we don't just want to follow his command. He took wine and unleavened bread, not crackers, not wafers, not cookies, unleavened
bread and wine. And like baptism, what we do
is a likeness concerning his body and blood. Now the Catholics
call the Lord's table a Eucharist. They believe and teach that the
wafer and the wine actually becomes the body and blood of Jesus Christ
when you put it in your mouth. They called it a transubstantiation. And the Lord nowhere taught cannibalism. And this is exactly why all of
his disciples left him over in John 6. He said, except you eat
the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no
life in you. But he was saying these things
spiritually and there to be spiritually understood. It wouldn't do you
any good if he ate his body. Wouldn't do you a bit of good.
This is just another ridiculous imagination of men. Our Lord nowhere taught cannibalism,
and this is exactly why they all left Him. And He turned to
the twelve, and He said, You going to go there? Huh? That offend you? You going to go? They said, Where
we going to go? We didn't have anywhere to go.
Thou hast the word of eternal life. There's all kinds of things in
the Scriptures that are figurative and so concerning both of these
New Testament ordinances. They're picturing something.
All right, here's the third thing. The examination. Some believe
this ordinance to be fenced according to local church membership. If
you're not a member of this church, you can't partake of this ordinance.
I don't know who came up with that. God's church is one church. He has churches here, there,
and yonder. Each of those churches have a
pastor, but that don't mean that nobody else can preach the gospel
to them, and it doesn't mean that nobody else can partake
of the ordinance of baptism or the Lord's table. By a pastor, a church, a committee
who examines these men, That's just silliness. I find no such restrictions in
the Scriptures. This examination is here in 1
Corinthians 11, 28 called a self-examination. Let every man examine himself. And this examination is to establish
whether or not he's worthy to keep the ordinance. Listen to this, verse 29. This
ought to make the hair stand up on the back of our neck. It
does me every time I read it. For he that eateth and drinketh
unworthily eateth and drinketh damnation to himself. Don't that
frighten you just a little bit? Why not discerning the Lord's
body? That's the problem. Our worthiness to partake of
the bread and the wine has to do with our faith. True faith,
God-given faith, discerns the body of Christ. He said over in Hebrews chapter
10, I may not get this exactly right, but he said, Sacrifice
an offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared
me. To do what? To pull away sin. Now what he said, I come to do
thy will, O God. He gave me this body, and this
body is to declare to us our union with him. He's one with
us. And this body is going to go
up before God and be judged and be put to death. This body that
God gave to him, this perfect body, is going to be offered. He bore our sins in his own body
on the tree. True faith, God-given faith discerns
the body of Christ. When he cometh into the world,
he saith, Sacrifice an offering thou wouldst not. But a body
hast thou prepared me, and this body was given to him to accomplish
the redemptive will of God. And he said, Lord, I come, lo,
in the volume of the book written of me, to do thy will. And he said, listen to this,
by the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body
of Jesus Christ once for all. His body is a substitutionary
body. one given to die in our stead.
His body is a representative body, one given to honor God's
holiness and justice and righteousness, yet manifest God's love and mercy
and grace. His body is the temple of God.
He's the God-man mediator. And Paul said in Ephesians 1,
7, in whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness
of sins according to the riches of his grace. with his body. Can you discern
his body? Do you understand what his body
is? Why he had to become a man, why he had to come down from
glory, be offered on a cross, be judged of God, committed everything
that he did into the hands of God, his own soul, and then raised
him from the dead and gave him glory. That's it. That's it. All right. Fourthly, how is this
ordinance to be observed? Well, we dare not make more of
this ordinance than how it was established of our Lord. We don't
have a priest come out here in a big gown with some altar boys
and they have special instruments and a tongue depressor because
they don't want to handle this, is going to be the body of Christ,
and they go through all this crap is what it is, and they
go through all this pretense, which is nothing in the world
but an abomination to God. You know who knows when man saves?
That man. That man in whom he does the
work. Now give it a little time, somebody
else is going to know it. He'll manifest it. God will manifest
His Word. He'll try it and prove it. But
right then, when God saves that man, he's the only one who knows
it. He knows it. We dare not make more of this
ordinance than how it was given. We break and pass out the bread,
reminding all those who eat it that it represents and figures
the broken body of Christ. And our spiritual bread is broken
We break that bread and we see that spiritual bread, His body
broken for us, and we pass out these small vessels of wine,
reminding all who drink it that it's the blood of the New Testament. By His own blood, He entered
in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption
for us. We don't need any sophisticated
ceremonies, priests, altar boys, holy instruments, or anything
else. Just pass out the bread and the wine and drink it and
eat it. And then lastly, verses 29 through
31, he leaves us with a stern warning. He that eateth and drinketh
unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning
the Lord's body. And for this cause, many are
weak and sickly among you, and many sleep, talking about our
death. This is spiritual ordinance for
spiritual men and women, And this warning, as frightening
as it is, is not something given to keep us from partaking of
the ordinance. This do is his commandment. And now he's telling us, don't
do this. Don't do this. The warning is
to those who have not the discernment of believers, and simply keep
this ordinance like The unbelieving Jews kept their feast days, holy
days, and ceremonies under the law. They see it as an act of
righteousness. Don't do that. See Him as your righteousness. As your righteousness.