Let's turn back to the passage
we read earlier in Acts 28. What I'd like to spend most of
our time looking at is that lovely phrase in Acts 28. We found brethren. To find brethren is to have three
things that happen here in verse 14. They desired us to stay with
them. carry with them seven days. And when brethren find other
brethren like Paul, they thank God and they take courage. They take boldness and they take
confidence. May that be our portion. Let's
pray. Heavenly Father, we pray that you might be the one who
speaks and that your word I'd be faithful in our hearts, Heavenly
Father, to remind us yet again because we are so forgetful of
who the Lord Jesus Christ is and the wonder of his power to
save and to protect and to carry his people through all of this
world and into heaven's glories. We bless you, Heavenly Father,
and praise you because we have a glorious and successful Saviour. May he be preached and he be
exalted. So let's go back to where we
left our journey last week. Paul had healed this man Publius. And when this was done, others
also, verse 9, which had disease of the island, came and were
healed. The presence of God's people brings a blessing and
brings a healing to this world. The rain shines on the righteous
and the unrighteous, but this world revolves and this world
continues because the children of God are still in it. And when
the children of God, the last of the children of God, are saved,
this earth has no longer any purpose. This purpose was created
by God that the Lord Jesus Christ might be glorified, that the
Lord Jesus Christ might be crucified and all of the Old Testament
brings us forward to his crucifixion and all of this age that we live
in is but the outworkings of that in the lives of God and
his people. He is absolutely sovereign over
all things. and yet his people are caused
to be a blessing in this world. We are salt and light in this
world. It may be a diminished light
these days and it might be a salt that doesn't seem to do the things
it did, but nevertheless we are here as God's witnesses and there
is a purpose in all things. So they came and were healed
and they honoured us with many honours. One thing you can guarantee
with Paul that if any honours came to him it was honours that
was given and due to the Lord Jesus Christ and Paul would have
made that abundantly clear. And when we departed they laid
to us with such things as necessary the children of this world will
be used of God to provide all that's necessary on the journey
through this world for the saints of God. But Paul is an example
yet again, isn't he, of how he lives before pagan people, and
especially the Roman people. As we'll see in the next couple
of verses, he had, one, a friendship and maybe a fellowship in the
Gospel with the centurion who was in charge. But also Paul
conducted himself in this world in such a way that he didn't
dishonor the gospel by the way he lived his life. I love what
Proverbs 22 says, He that loveth pureness of heart, well there's
only one that's pure of heart, isn't there? The Lord Jesus Christ.
For the grace of his lips the king shall be his friend. The world is an enmity against
our God, but we live in this world in such a way that we want
to, I trust, to live in such a way that the gospel is not
hindered by our behaviour here. Paul had been used mightily on
this island of Malta. And after three months, we departed
in a ship of Alexandria. So these two ships had come from
the same port. The ship that was wrecked on
the island had come from Alexandria. This other ship, which had wintered
on the isles, no doubt that ship must have avoided the storm altogether
and landed there before the storm came, because the storm was blowing
from the northeast. If you come from Alexandria,
you would be blown back to the north coast of Africa. We departed
in a ship at Alexandria which had wintered in the isle, whose
sign was Castor and Pollux." That's our modern constellation,
as people call it, these star signs. I hope you have nothing
to do with them and avoid them like the plague, and any time
you have opportunity to see them you'll cast your eyes away from
them. It is just pagan idolatry. See the men of this world sail
under a banner of their gods, aren't they? Carstern Pollux
are the sons of Jupiter. Gemini, as they are called today,
and they're the gods of Mariners. And so you put your gods that
protect you up on the front of your ship. It was a common thing
in those days. It's extraordinary, isn't it,
how we have in this passage a reflection and a revelation
of how easy it is for men to create gods. Go back to verse
6. Paul, they thought, was a murderer.
And then when he was unharmed by the snake, at the end of verse
6 it says, they thought he was a god. You see how easily they
create gods? When I was in India you could
create gods all over the place. And they would start little shrines,
and one of the things that they worshipped over there were snakes. And the ants would build these
holes on the side of the road in the red soil, and they'd build
a hole that had a great big interest on it. In no time at all you'd
see someone come along and they'd start to put a little bit of
paprika around it and then there'd be a lime and then there'd be
offerings. And then it just grew and grew
and grew, the men of this world. We are by nature idle factories. We are able in a heartbeat as
these men were, as they were in Acts chapter 14 when Paul
healed that crippled man. around the image immediately
and instantly and worship them. I was horrified when I saw this.
I didn't realize what it was and I looked at it more closely.
And here we are. It's NAIDOC week. So this is a map of Australia.
The outline of Australia is a snake, just because You make it rainbow
doesn't mean it's not still a serpent. And so the whole outline of Australia,
including Tasmania, is a snake. And in the middle is a man lying
down asleep. And the bottom is, always was.
That's a lie. This world was created by God,
always will be. That's another lie, isn't it?
So the snake, it's a shocking, when you think about it in terms
of spiritual things, it's a horrifying thing, isn't it, in Australia?
And what an apt picture, what an apt picture of this nation
of ours under the sway of a serpent, under the sway of man-made created
gods. This picture and what we see
here in Acts should remind us that if man can create gods in
his own image, why on earth shouldn't we be aware of the fact that
man can create other Jesuses and other Gospels and have other
spirits at a heartbeat by his own creation? It seems to be
one of the things that's missing from so much understanding of
these days, because the Gospel is not preached, is that there
is no serious understanding of false teaching at all. The religious world can join
hands with the religious world across all their denominations
and they can march down the broad road of Australia hand in hand
in hand, can't they? Catholics and Anglicans and others
all join hands together. We've seen it again and again
and again. And God's people stand aside from all that and just
say it's idolatry. We'll stand for the truth of
who the Lord Jesus Christ is as he's revealed in the scriptures.
As Paul was made to do. Verse 12. And landing at Syracuse,
Syracuse is a city on the east coast of Sicily, just across
from Italy. We tarried there three days,
and from thence we fetched a compass and other ship and came to Regium. And after one day, which is an
island between Sicily and Italy, and after one day the south wind
blew. You might recall in Acts 27, the wind blew contrary to
them all the way, except when the huge storm that came from
our God, as all winds do, blew them to the island of Malta.
The south wind blew, and we came the next day to Puteoli, where
we found brethren. We found brethren. Paul had his
brethren on the ship, of course. Luke and Aristarchus had been
with him for all of this several months of journey and time on
the island of Melita. But we found brethren. That word
found means to find after searching by inquiry, thought, and examination. See, they weren't found by accident,
were they? Paul, wherever he went, he was
searching out for brethren. He was searching out for brethren.
Even in Acts chapter 21 verse 4 it says, that he finding brethren. Paul was, like all of God's people,
in the search for the sheep. We're looking for the sheep of
God. The sheep of God will come and hear the shepherds' voice.
They were searched out. Herod searched out for the Lord
Jesus Christ with the intent, he said to people, that he was
going to worship him, with intent in his heart to murder him. The
mother and father of the Lord Jesus Christ searched out the
Lord Jesus Christ for those days when he was in the temple. Where'd
they find him? Where would you expect to find the Lord Jesus
Christ? You find him in the temple. You find him saying to his mother
and father that he must be about his father's business. They found
him. They found Brethren. They found
Brethren. I don't know about you, but finding
brethren is the delight and should be the delight of your heart.
So often we spend so much of our time in this world in loneliness
and in separation and isolation and there are people possibly
listening in as we're speaking right now who are separated by
vast distances. And it seems in this age that
the children of God are scattered as ones and twos often in small
remnant communities all over this world. And maybe this is
the time that God has raised up the internet that we can actually
know and hear from them and know that they're listening in to
know that they might have the same response As these people
in this city on the west coast of Italy, Piutoli, we found brethren
and were desired to tarry with them. We found brethren and they
desired, they were anxious for us to stay with them. So there's
always a mutual, there's always mutual comfort, there's mutual
encouragement in brethren being gathered together. There's always
a desire that we'll have more. Don't you love that story at
the end of Luke? Chapter 24, when those disciples had gone
on that road to Emmaus and the Lord Jesus Christ had preached
himself out of all the scriptures. What an amazing message that
would have been. What a sermon for those men. And then he revealed
himself in the breaking of bread. And what was their desire? Their desire was for Him to abide
with us. Did not our eyes burn? They wanted
Him, having been with them, now that He was revealed in the flesh
to them, they wanted Him just to abide with Him. Abide with Him. If you've been in the presence
of God's people, you've been in that presence because of the
presence of God. where two or three are gathered,
the Lord Jesus Christ promised. He says, I'm in their midst. Any gathering of his gathering
is a gathering of his presence, a gathering of his power, and
it's a gathering that creates a desire, a gathering that creates
a fellowship in the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. We found
brethren. We found brethren, and when we
find brethren, brethren desire to be with other brethren. We
are sheep, says the Lord Jesus Christ. And it's meant to picture
what we really are, aren't they? If you're a shepherd and you
go into a paddock and find a flock of sheep and you see one sheep
that's over there on its own, you know two things about that
sheep, don't you? That it's not well and it's in danger and you
need to go and get it. We are flock animals. We are
flock animals. And so the gathering of God's
people together is essential for our growing, for our gathering.
It's essential for us to be ministered to by our Saviour. What's this
word brethren mean? See brethren is a word that means,
literally it means from the same womb. From the same womb. People might say that aren't
all of the people of this world,
aren't we all brethren? Aren't all people God's children? Well the scriptures make it abundantly
clear that the children of God are particular children and there
are in this world the children of God and the children of the
devil. And if you don't have the spirit
of Christ, Paul says in Romans 8, you're none of his. And it's
Christ living in you, the hope of glory. And so God's children
are children born of the same womb. They're born, they have
the same father. God is our father. The others
claim to have God as their father, and Lord Jesus Christ says, Satan
is your father. God's children have God as their
father. God's children are all born of
the same mother. I love that verse in Galatians.
chapter chapter 4 the Jerusalem chapter 4 verse
26 the Jerusalem which is above is free which is the mother of
us all so we have the same father I love what Galatians 4.6 says. It inverts modern religious offers
of salvation. Listen to what Paul says. And
because you are sons, Because you have always been
sons of God, God has sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your
heart, crying, Abba, Father. You don't become a child of God
by having faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. It is revealed that you
have been a child of God and the Spirit has come. And we cry,
as the Lord Jesus Christ did, we cry, Abba, Father. Brethren,
they're all the same word. They have the same father, they
have the same mother, we have the same brother. Turn with me
to Hebrews chapter 2. We should be familiar with these
verses because we read them so often. Hebrews 2 verse 9, But we see
Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the
suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor, that he, by
the grace of God, should taste death for every man. For it became him for whom are
all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons
to glory, these are the everyman, in bringing many sons unto glory,
to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings. For both he that sanctifieth
and they who are sanctified are all of one. We are one with him. We are united
to him. We are united to him in an eternal
covenant of grace. We're all one, not close. We're
one. For which cause? He is not ashamed
to call them brethren. He calls us brethren. The Lord
Jesus Christ and us are brethren, brothers and sisters. Saying,
this is what he's saying, isn't it? I will declare thy name.
He'll declare The character of God is in his omnipotence and
in his sovereignty. The character of God in his electing
grace, in his predestinating determination of all things,
in his successful redeeming work in his son, I'll declare the
name, my name. We want to declare again and
again the character of God, the name, because that's what the
Lord Jesus Christ is doing. He's declaring the name. He declares
his Father's name. He declares it to his brethren.
He only declares it to his brethren. The rest of the world have no
idea. who the god of reality is, they make gods of their own
imagination. I'll declare thy name unto my
brethren in the midst of the church. Now listen to this. I will sing praise unto thee. The Lord Jesus Christ, in the
night he was crucified, at that last supper, he sang, he sang
with his brethren, his brethren. It's remarkable, isn't it? We have a God who sings. Sings. And again, I will put my trust
in him. And again, behold I and the children
which God hath given me. Brethren, God has given them to the Lord
Jesus Christ. He's not ashamed to call them
brethren. He came for them. They are fellows in the same
ship. We are one with him. And like
a dutiful wife to her husband, we bear his name. Turn with me
to Jeremiah 23. We bear his name. If you're his
brethren and he's your husband, you bear his name. Let's start
at verse five, Jeremiah 23. Behold, the days come, saith
the Lord, that I will raise unto David a righteous branch and
a king shall reign. and prosper and shall execute
judgment and justice in the earth. In his days Judah shall be saved
and Israel shall dwell safely and this is his name whereby
he shall be called. What's his name? The Lord Our
Righteousness. That's the name he's called.
The Lord Our Righteousness. Turn over with me to Jeremiah
33. It comes after that great passage
on the eternal covenant being completed and promised and finished,
where God says he'll write his name and he will be under them
a God. But this is the name in those days. In those days, and
at that time, Jeremiah 33.15, will I cause the branch of righteousness
to grow up unto David, and he shall execute judgment and righteousness. Now David's obviously talking
about the Lord Jesus Christ. David had been dead for 600 years
by this time, 450 years. In those days, Judah shall be
saved, and Jerusalem shall dwell safely, and this is the name
whereby she shall be called. This is her name. What's her
name? The Lord Our Righteousness. The Lord Our Righteousness. So
brethren are born of the same womb. Brethren have the same
father. Brethren are born of the same
mother. Brethren have the same brother. Brethren have the same
husband. Brethren, as John would say,
are fellows in the same ship. We are fellows in the ship of
grace and the ship of faith. We are the brethren. We are Abraham's
seed. We are the faith children of
Abraham. We are members of one flock. One flock belonging to the Lord
Jesus Christ, the Great Shepherd of the sheep. The brethren are chosen, created,
earned, redeemed, promised, purchased, a purchased possession, and the
brethren are loved. The brethren are so close to
the Lord Jesus Christ and so completely set free from their
sins that we are made of God. by a sovereign work of grace
to be perfect and fit receptacles for God to deal with us in love,
but not only that, for God to dwell in us. That's the hope
of glory. If you have any hope of glory,
it's Christ in you. Christ in you. We have, as brethren,
we have a unity and a communion. And we have a presence, as we
read in Hebrews chapter two, verse 11. As the Lord Jesus said to the
apostles on the night that he was crucified in John 14, 20,
he says, at that day, at that day, you shall know that I am
in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you. We are brethren because we are
of the family of God. We are children of God in union
with the Godhead and therefore we have union with our brothers
and sisters in Christ. And that's what 1 John says.
This notion that you can have fellowship with people and them
not have fellowship with you around the gospel is a ridiculous
notion according to the scriptures, isn't it? 1 John 5 says, Whosoever
believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God. That's your birthing
as a brethren, isn't it? And everyone that loveth him
that beget. Who's the begetting one? Our
God is the begetting one. He's the one that causes the
birth. And everyone that loveth him that forget, if you've been
begotten by him, you'll love him. If you've been begotten
by him, you won't have any question about loving him. If you've been
forgiven by him, if you find that like Paul on that Damascus
road you've been raised up out of that dust where hell had opened
its mouth wide before you and justice would have put you there
and the Lord Jesus Christ interposed and bore your sins in his own
body, those sins of wickedness and rebellion, You'll love him.
You'll love him. It's a nonsense to think that
you can be saved and not love the Saviour. It's an unbiblical
nonsense. But if you love him, as 1 John
5 says, him that is the begetting one, the one that beget. Love
of him also that is begotten of him. I have the remarkable privilege
of looking upon people with love and thankfulness to our great
God for allowing me to have fellowship with him, with you. And that's
what church is about, isn't it? See, we can't worship him unless
we love him. We're brethren. You can see why
Paul was anxious. Wherever he went he was searching
for brethren. He went to a place where he knew
that there might be an invitation for him to speak amongst the
Jews and he spoke. And people again were born again
by the Word and Spirit. They were born from above. That
word, born again. You must be born again. Whitfield
was challenged one day. He said, why do you keep saying
people must be born again? You're always saying people must
be born again. He says, because you must. Because
you must. You're born again, you'll love
him. And if you're born again, you'll love his people. Born again. above is what that
means and we're born again because of the Word of God coming to
us not as a word from men but as a word from God Born again, as Peter says in
1 Peter 1.23, born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible,
by the word of God which liveth and abideth forever. Heaven and earth will pass away,
but not one word out of this book will pass away. For, because
all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower
of glass. Is that what you see of the glory
of man? So much for glorying in men. May the Lord preserve
us from glorying in men, no matter who they are. The grass withereth
and the flower thereof falls away, but the word of the Lord
endureth forever. And this is the word which by
the gospel is preached unto you. Get the order right. There is
no Word of God where there is no Gospel. There is no worship
of God where there is no Gospel. No wonder they are in darkness
and ignorance. God says they're in darkness
and ignorance. It's only by the Gospel that the light shines
on the Word of God. It's only by the Gospel. And
the Gospel is a person. The Gospel is a declaration of
who the Lord Jesus Christ is and what he's done and what he's
doing now. As Ezekiel 34 says, this great
good shepherd goes searching for his flock. He said, we can't
see them, can we? Elijah couldn't see them. In
his day, he thought he was reduced to the only one. And God says,
I have reserved for myself, Elijah, 7,000 that haven't bowed their
knee to Baal, and you don't know a single one of them. But I know
every single last one of them, and I'm going to gather every
single last one of them. We are brethren. We are brethren
together. We are brethren brought into
a fold. We are brethren who are the sheep
that are owned by the Good Shepherd. I love John 10 and I'm looking
forward in months to come, hopefully it's months to come, we might
be preaching on John's Gospel and John Chapter 10, but it's
a glorious picture, isn't it, of this sheep fold. Turn with
me to John Chapter 10 for a minute. The Lord Jesus Christ is talking
about thieves and robbers that enter in another way. But he
that entereth in by the door is the shepherd of the sheep.
To him the porter openeth, and the sheep hear his voice, and
he calleth his own sheep by name. Remember what happened on the
Damascus Road? Saul saw. The Lord Jesus Christ wasn't
talking to all those people there. He was talking to Saul. When
the Gospel comes, it comes to you personally. Always, personally. We'll go on and read some more.
He calls his own sheep by name, and he leadeth them out. He leadeth
them out. And when he putteth forth his
own sheep, he goeth before them. And the sheep follow him. Why
do they follow him? Read on. For they know his voice. And the stranger they will not
follow, but will flee from him, for they know not the voice of
strangers. They know not the voice of strangers. This parable spake Jesus unto
them, but they understood not what things were which he spake
unto them. Then Jesus said unto them again,
Verily, verily, I say unto you, I am the door of the sheep. All
that ever came before me are thieves and robbers. But the
sheikh did not hear them. I am the door, and by me if any
man enter in, he shall be saved. This is entering into this fellowship
of brethren. He shall be saved. It's a word
from God. He shall be saved and shall go
in and out and find pasture and find the green pastures of the
word of God. The thief cometh but for to steal
and to kill and to destroy. I come that they may have life
and might have it more abundantly. I am the good shepherd. So these
brethren are not without a shepherd. They're not without a foal. I
am the good shepherd. The good shepherd giveth his
life for the sheep. He doesn't giveth his life for
the goats, he giveth his life for the sheep. But he that is
in hiling, and not the shepherd, whose own sheep are not, seeth
the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep, and fleeth, and the
wolf catches them, and scattereth the sheep. The hiling fleeth,
because he's in hiling, and careth not for the sheep. I am the good
shepherd. And know my sheep, and am known
of mine, as the Father knoweth me, even so I know the Father,
and I lay down my life for the sheep. And here we're included
in verse 16. And other sheep I have, I have. When did he have them? He had
them in eternity. They were his in eternity before
the foundation of the world. He had them in the covenant.
They were given to him by the Father. They're in his possession. They're his. He has them. Which are not of this fold, them
also I must bring. I must bring them. They will come. And there shall be one fold and
one shepherd. So this is a brethren, isn't
it? Therefore does my father love me because I lay down my
life that I might take it again. He gathers these brethren together
and gathers them into his fold. We are most often described in
the scriptures as saints in the New Testament. We are nearly
as much described as being in him, but another description
that floods the New Testament is the fact that we are brethren.
We are brethren. A brethren. A brethren called. A brethren beloved. Brethren,
as Galatians 4.28 says, are children of promise. They're children
of the free. They're brethren, as Paul says
in Galatians 5.13, brethren called into liberty. You've been set
free. It's a glorious picture, isn't
it, of that great day of jubilee when all of your debts were counselled
and all that you've lost by your own wickedness is restored to
you. So that's the year that the Lord
Jesus Christ read off out of Isaiah 61 in Nazareth. We are
called to liberty. We have no righteousness of our
own to defend. We're called into his freedom,
his liberty. We're set free by him. All the
debts have been paid. All the debt of us, all the debt
that I owed was transferred to the Lord Jesus Christ and he
took full responsibility for it. And he bore it. And he bore
it away. As Paul says in 2 Thessalonians,
brethren, beloved of the Lord, We read in Hebrews, but in Revelation
they're still speaking of brethren. They're speaking of brethren
now in Revelation 6. It says in warning to us as well
to the earth, Revelation 12.10 says, Now has
come the salvation, the strength, and the kingdom of our God, and
the power of his Christ. For the accuser, our brethren,
is cast down. So the brethren are an accused
group, aren't they? They're accused by Satan. Satan
holds his goods, Luke says, in his palace and he keeps them
at peace. God's people are harassed in this world and accused. his cast down which accused them
before our God day and night and they overcame him. The brethren
overcame these accusations by the blood of the lamb and by
the word of their testimony and that they loved not their lives
unto death. Paul found brethren. He was excited when he found
brethren. So he didn't just find them by accident, did he? He
searched out for the brethren. And when he found them, there
was this mutual desire. He desired to see them, and they
desired for him to stay with them. There's a fellowship in these
brethren. And he goes on. Are you thankful to God for your
brethren? Are you thankful to God for the
meeting that you have with your brethren? Are you thankful to
God for the fellowship that we have in the Gospel of the Lord
Jesus Christ? We have been blessed, haven't
we, over our time here? in this church to have brethren
come from all over the world to meet with us. I remember a
fellow left us and he said that we didn't love each other enough.
Well, it's impossible to answer that charge, isn't it? It doesn't
matter how much love you show someone. If they don't feel that
they're being loved, they're not being loved. You can't answer
it, can you? And you can love them in the gospel and you can
preach the truth to them and you can care for them all you like,
and they'll still turn away from you saying, well, you didn't
love us enough. And it was fascinating, within weeks of that man saying
that, God had sent Jerry from Florida, on one side of this
world out here, to bear testament to the fact that he had been
in a fellowship where people loved each other, just like they
do back in his fellowship in Orlando. And within a few weeks
of that, Peter Menne came from Scotland, so we had two people,
the Lord sent two people from two sides of the earth to say,
there is a fellowship here and there is a fellowship in love.
And the accusers can go, and accusers can keep accusing us,
and accusers will find plenty of weakness in our flesh to justify
their accusations, and the door of the church is wide open, and
people can leave accusing us. Paul. finished his days in Rome,
and they'd all abandoned him, and he said, and the Lord stood
by my side and strengthened me. That's what happened to these
brethren on his way there, didn't he? He thanked God. He thanked God. They walked 70
kilometers, and others walked 50 kilometers to meet him on
the way, and he thanked God when he saw them. I thank God for
my brethren. I've had the privilege of meeting
many overseas, and Lord willing, when all of this business is
over and done with and we're allowed to have them back again,
we have so many brethren that want to meet with us. We have
so many brethren that are anxious to come back to see us again,
and so many brethren. We have, as the children of God,
we have this extraordinary family that's knitted together by a
shepherd. And Paul took courage. Paul took courage. You would
think, wouldn't you, that someone like Paul, who'd had the witness
of the Lord Jesus Christ speaking to him personally and directly
and repeatedly, someone who had the extraordinary privilege of
writing of all the New Testament, wouldn't need a whole lot of
encouragement from people. He'd got it directly from God.
that he's exactly like us, brothers and sisters. He's a pattern,
isn't he? We need each other. If God, by his Spirit, has worked
salvation in your heart, then you have gifts that I need. I can't do without your fellowship. I can't do without the gifts
that God has given you. Obviously I can in one sense,
but in reality we need each other. That's what it is to be gathered
as sheep into one fold. Sheep rub up against each other.
Sheep need each other. Sheep need that fellowship. So
we are by the grace of God, like Paul,
brought into fellowship. We're brought into fellowship
with the Lord Jesus Christ. We're brought into fellowship
with his father. We're brought into fellowship
of the Holy Spirit. We're brought into fellowship
one with another. We have fellowship and we will
have fellowship with our brothers and sisters who have gone before
us into glory and all of the future. is a future of fellowship, isn't
it? That's what the new creation is all about. Every glance, every
thought, all the time, will be ones of love and worship in the
glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. Eternity is about fellowship,
isn't it? We're going to have the Lord's
Supper. Paul speaks of it. In 1 Corinthians 10, it says,
the cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion
of the blood of Christ? The cup of blessing, is it not
the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread we break, is
it not the communion of the body? For we, being many, are one bread
and one body. For we are all partakers of that
one bread. A cup of blessing. Paul issued
these, received from the Lord. I have received of the Lord that
which also I delivered unto you, that the Lord Jesus Christ, the
same night in which he was portrayed, took bread, and when he had given
thanks, he broke it and said, Take, eat, this is my body which
is broken for you. Do this in remembrance of me.
And after the same manner also he took the cup which he had
supped, saying, This cup is the New Testament in my blood. This
do ye, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me. For as often as you eat this
bread and drink this cup, you do show the Lord's death till
his come. 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. But let a man examine
himself. I can't examine you and I'm not
going to even try. We examine ourselves. Is this
the fellowship? Is this cup of blessing? Is it
the communion of the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ? Are we
in common union with what God says about the blood of the Lord
Jesus Christ, that by his shed blood he has saved all of his
people completely from their sins? away all the sins of his people.
You'll call his name Jesus. He will save his people from
his sins. The sacrifice of the Lord Jesus
Christ on Calvary's tree will never be seen as a miscarriage
of the justice of God. It's an exemplar of the majesty
of the character of our God. It's the name of our God which
our Saviour declares. This cup of blessing. Let's pray. Our Heavenly Father,
we pray that you might grant us a communion and union in the
blood of your dear and precious Son. Make us, Heavenly Father,
to recognise by your Spirit's work in our lives what your dear
Son suffered on Calvary's tree. that we are saved, not through
anything that we do, Heavenly Father, but we are saved by his
blood, which he shed for his people. Oh, our Father, your
servant Peter called this blood precious. You alone can make
it priceless, precious to us, our Father. Bless it to our hearts,
Heavenly Father, and cause it to be a reason for us yet again
to remember, to worship, and to love your dear and precious
Son and the fellowship that he creates, the fellowship that
he sustains and maintains throughout our pilgrimage in this world.
Bless your word and your Son to our hearts, Heavenly Father,