Turn with me again to Isaiah
45. It is my intention and my desire
to bring a very brief message to you tonight. A lot of times,
I've said that a few times, and it honestly has never worked
out. I say that, and I get carried away with thoughts
and passionate about things, and then it's normal. It's just
a normal length. But I believe that I can do it
tonight. I don't want to bring a brief
message for fear of running too long. It's because there's one
thing that I want to get across. And then I want to stop. So we
can dwell on it. I have been the Lord. I've been
so excited to bring this message to you, the Lord. What I want to say is in these
notes, if the Lord will let me convey it, a lot of times I mess
things up and walk out of here thinking, well, the Lord gave
it to me, but I sure didn't give it to them. Thankfully, it's
not by man's might. It's by his spirit. But I do
pray the Lord will make this to be a blessing and I do pray
the Lord will let me convey this. And I do and I want to encourage
you to give me all of your attention. Give the word all of your attention
because it's Lord willing going to be brief. We're observing the Lord's table
tonight. And before preparing this message,
I knew that I wanted to have the Lord's table tonight. And
I put a lot of thought into what we were doing in this, what this
represents, and why our Lord gave it to us and commanded us
to observe it. And I considered many different
passages of scripture and many different things to say. And
sometimes when I'm studying, all of the thoughts start piling
up in my mind and it becomes a big overwhelming task to get
it all sorted. It happens a lot. And that was happening to me
for this. And I was begging the Lord to help me and to send a
word to me and he did. He did. This verse of scripture
came into my mind and it simplified everything and it gave me such
clarity on what we are doing in this. what this represents,
why our Lord gave it to us. It's this verse right here, Isaiah
45 verse 22. Our Lord said, look unto me and be ye saved. All the ends of the earth for
I am God and there is none else. Look unto me and be ye saved. Isn't that wonderful? All the
ends of the earth for I am God and there is none else. We have
unleavened bread here and red wine. And we have that here because
that's what the Lord told us to have here. He said this bread
was a representation of his body that would be broken for his
people. He said it was to be unleavened
bread. That means not puffed up. Because unlike us, he was not
puffed up. Completely opposite from us.
He was not puffed up. He was not puffed up with pride
like we are. He was not puffed up with sin
in any way. He humbled himself. He humbled himself before God
because his people wouldn't. He humbled himself before God
because his people wouldn't. He said, this bread represents
my humbled, sinless body that will be broken for my people. It will be broken instead of,
in the place of my people. And when we think of his broken
body, we naturally think of what Pilate And his soldiers and the
Jews did to our Lord. That's not what broke his body.
That's what we naturally think of. What Pilate and the soldiers
and everybody did to him. Mutilated him. That's not what
broke his body. That beating from man that left
him a bloody pulp. That is not the breaking he was
talking about. Man didn't break him. God broke
him. His body was broken by God in
a way that man's eyes could never see. The fact that his body was unleavened,
sinless, means he was broken not because of himself, but because
of the sin of others. And those others are his people. And the fact that He was broken
for them means He was made to be what was worthy to be broken. God is holy and He will not break
what is not worthy to be broken. So the fact that Christ was broken
means He was made worthy to be broken. He was made sin. We have unleavened bread here
representing his broken body, and we have red wine representing
his shed blood. Wine is considered to be a drink
of purity that doesn't spoil. And that's what the blood of
Christ is. It is a substance of untaintable purity that satisfies
the heart of God, and the heart of his people. The blood of Christ
satisfies everything and everyone. Peter said it's precious and
it's incorruptible. Paul said it's priceless riches,
unsearchable riches, wealth that can never be told, a value that
is able to purchase eternal redemption from the dead of sin. By the
one sacrifice of himself, he purchased eternal redemption. That's what these two elements
of this table represent. Number one, the body that God
broke, and number two, the blood that God shed, the blood that
He spilled, the blood that God poured out, the blood that God
emptied to satisfy God's judgment and justice on our sin. Now,
this is what was made so clear to me. Our Lord said, Look unto
Me. Look unto Me. In looking at these
elements that He gave to us, He gave us this. He commanded
this. In looking at these elements,
in looking at the picture that these elements represent, we
see Christ. We see the wounding of Christ. You know what we see right here
in this? The wounding of Christ. We see the suffering of Christ. We see the cross of Christ. We see the death of Christ and
the sacrifice of appeasement that was offered to God for our
sin. In Christ. And our Lord said. Look unto me. Look unto me." He did not say,
look at me. He said, look unto me. Look unto me. Find your hope
in me. Cast your all on me. Is the sacrifice of Christ enough
for you? Look at no one else. Look at nothing else. Like that table. Look unto me. Look unto me. He did not say,
look to your faith. Who should observe this table?
Those who believe on Christ. Those who have been given true
faith in Jesus Christ. But you know what? He didn't
say, look unto your faith. Which is what we try to do all
the time. We look for assurance of being
saved and being one of his by trying to see how much faith
we have in us. Well, our Lord didn't say, look
unto your faith. He said, look unto me. He didn't
say, look to your election. Try to figure out if you're one
of the elect. He didn't say that. He said, look unto me. Look unto
me. Hope in me. Hope in what I've
done. Cast your all on what I've done.
If we've been given spiritual eyes to just look unto him, then
we are one of his elect. He only gives spiritual eyes
to his elect, and that looking with those spiritual eyes is
faith. That's what faith is. If we do
nothing more than just look unto him, that is the faith of God's
elect. But we're not looking to our
faith, and we're not looking to our election, we're looking
unto him. trusting that what he accomplished
in his sacrifice is enough to save us. That's enough. That's
enough. God's people don't look to their
knowledge. They don't look to their devotion. They don't look
to their own faithfulness. We look unto him. Verse 22, he said, Look unto
me. and be ye saved." Rest in your salvation. Rest
in the fact that you are saved. You trust that when I say, I
have done enough to save you, I've done enough to save you.
Rest. Verse 22, he said, look unto
me and be ye saved. all the ends of the earth. Listen,
there is not a soul on this earth who, if he or she is given the
ability by God to look unto Christ, will not be saved. Yeah, but
I thought only the elect are included. They are. But if you look unto him and
you say, he is all I have, There is not a soul, all the
ends of the earth. Anybody, anywhere. I thought
you believed in election. I do. Anybody, anywhere. If God has given you faith to
look unto him, you're going to be saved. The sacrifice of salvation in
Christ has been extended to God's chosen, elect people in every, every nation, kindred, tongue, people
all over this world. And that means you can be included.
If God just gives you a heart to look, Verse 22, he said, look
unto me and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth, for I
am God and there is none else. This is who I am, this is what
I've done, and you can cast your all on it. Look unto me and be
ye saved. Now in closing, let me show you another verse
of scripture that says the same thing, and clearly explains what
we are doing in this and what this is saying to us, what our
Lord is saying to us by giving us this. Turn over to Exodus
14. Exodus 14, verse 13, see if the
Lord will let you see this and enter into this. Ask the Lord
to let you enter into this in your heart. Exodus 14, verse
13, it says, and Moses said unto the people, fear ye not, stand
still and see the salvation of the Lord. Stand still and see the salvation
of the Lord. That's exactly what our Lord
was saying in, look unto me and be you saved. Stand still and
see the salvation of the Lord. Look at this, verse 14. The Lord
shall fight for you and you shall hold your peace. This table is
our visual image of that. This is our tangible reminder
of that. Our Lord fought for us. That's what this is. Our Lord
fought for us. That's what this broken body
and this shed blood is saying to us. Our Lord fought for us. And therefore, thank God, we
can hold our peace. We can hold our peace. The battle
is done. When you look unto that, not
just at it, but when you look unto that, that's what you see.
The battle is done. The battle is won. We are safe
because of our Savior. Look unto Him and be ye saved,
all the ends of the earth, for He is God and there is none else. Amen. Brother Tony, you come.