A very familiar scripture, 1 Corinthians 11, 23. For I received
the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, that the Lord Jesus,
the same night in which he was portrayed, took bread. 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.
As the same manner also he took the cup. when he gets up saying,
this cup is a new testament in my blood. This do as often as
you drink it in remembrance of me. I'm not going to talk about
the Lord's supper. I'm going to talk about two statements
in here for us doing something in remembering Christ. And he
says, use the word often, often as you do it. So what I'm looking
at this morning is What does he say to remember? His body, his blood, and I'll
put it in a spiritual sense. Here is a picture of the soul of Christ bearing the full
wrath of God, and I guess to me, The most important thing
in there is if that stood by itself, it wouldn't be meaningful.
But it says, for you, for me, is what he's doing these things.
So here is the travail of the soul of God for us. That's what he says, remember. And the spiritual definition
for remembering is bring to mind again. And in order for someone
to bring to mind again, they have to experience it, seen it,
heard it. They must have some remembrance
of the event in order to bring it to their remembrance again.
So it's something you have to experience. If you have to experience
it, it's the first time of the year. But he says, no. bring
to mind again. That's the definition. The spiritual,
scriptural definition is bring to mind again. Now, extending
that, what is to mind? I'll say bring to the soul again. Bring to the heart again. Bring
to my understanding again. That is remembering. Now I'm
going to give you two examples that in the scripture One is
in the scripture, one is from a very practical experience standpoint,
where men remember things and then pervert it. That's not who
he was talking about. It's Christ him crucified is
what we're supposed to remember, often. And I'm gonna use Deuteronomy
as the example. Here's Moses, the last book that
he wrote before going into the Promised Land. All of the old
folks had died because of their belligerence and unbelief. They
died. So he's talking to the spiritual
Israel, the younger folks who were getting ready to go into
the land of promise. And he's reminding them of all
the tender mercies and multiple grace as the grace God had given
them all through the wilderness. And here's what he says. Hear, O Israel, spiritual Israel,
the Lord our God is one God, and these words which I command
you this day shall be in thine heart. In other words, his sermon,
his gospel, the word of God is in your heart. And thou shalt
teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them
when thou sittest in thine house, when thou walkest by the way,
and when thou liest down, and when thou raisest up." What he's
saying, keep the word of God with you in your soul, wherever
that soul is, whatever it's doing. Walking, talking, sleeping, working,
keep the word of God in your soul. And then he makes this
statement. and thou shalt bind them for
a sign from thine heart. Take this sermon, take this gospel,
take this word, and tie it with a spiritual strength to your
heart. And they, these words that he's
saying, shall be as frontlets between thine eyes. Now, what
he's saying is the eyes of the soul will see this in front of
your face. If it's your heart, in thine
heart, when you open your eyes and you see spiritually with
the eyes of the soul, what do you see? You see these words.
That's what Christ is saying, remember me. Remember what I've
done for you. He goes on in Deuteronomy 11
to make this statement. Lay out these words in your heart
and in your soul that tells me He said, do these things spiritually. These are graces that God gives. Lay them up in your heart and
in your soul, and bind them as a sign upon your hand, and they
may be as frontless between your eyes. So again, he uses the term
frontless. He said, these words should be
ever present before the eyes of your soul, not these eyes,
with the eyes of your soul. And what is he saying? All the
tender mercies and grace of God and all the grace he gave you
when you were going through this wilderness, keep this ever before
your eyes. What great things, what mighty
things God has done for your soul. That's what he's saying. He said, keep them. Now what
do they do? Still do it today, the Jews.
They go out there and they take and write messages on the back
of their hands. They take little pieces of paper
and write scripture on it, stick them on their forehead. They
made a physical thing out of it. Look at me, I've got this
thing as a front lip between my eyes. They still do it, the
Wailing Wall. They still take the same thing,
fold them up into little pieces of paper, and stick them in the
Wailing Wall. Even dignitaries from the U.S.,
including one president, has done the same thing. So what
they did, they took something spiritual with the eyes of the
soul that you're supposed to see, and they make something
literal and physical out of it. It's denying the spirituality
of God Almighty himself. It's something they do. Now,
I'm gonna take this as another example. During the Vietnam War,
800 plus pilots and other crew people were shot down and captured
by the North Vietnamese. They put them in five prisons.
Well, they were invaded. One of the prison camps was invaded,
and they had just moved them. They were afraid if we leave
them in these camps, they will all get captured. So they moved
them all to this place called Hanoi Hilton. These pilots got
together. And they started a communication
system. They would knock on the wall in Morse code. What were
they doing? They were trying to assemble
as much scripture as they could remember in a book. And they did. They took 800 and
some folks and they took their collective memory and they did
what they called, they formed, or wrote, a living Bible. What they were really meaning,
they had a Bible to live by. How did they do it? They did
it primarily on toilet paper. Anybody that's ever been to a
metal parlor, toilet paper's not that smooth, downy stuff.
It's kind of rough. So they tried all kinds of things
to make ink. They found out that cigarettes
ashes and plain water made the very best ink they could make.
So they would take these verses and they would tap them out,
and one guy was responsible for writing these things down, and
they wrote them sheet after sheet after sheet. Now, what did they
write down? First one, John 3, 16. For God so loved the world, gave
His only begotten Son, who shall ever believe in Him, shall not
perish, but have everlasting life. Then it got to 16 and 17. Then it went to Psalm 53. The
Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. But it emphasized things
like, yea, thou walk through the valley of shadow of death,
I fear no evil, because thy rod and thy staff are with me. That's
what they emphasized. Almost all of Romans 12. And
let me just flip right quick. In Romans 12. The first two verses
particularly. I was each brethren, therefore,
by the mercy of God that you present your bodies of living
sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable
service. Be not conformed to this world,
but be you transformed by the renewing of your mind that you
may prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of
God. Be not overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath,
for it is written, Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith
the Lord. Recompense no men, evil for evil. Provide things honest in sight
of all men. They were emphasizing, even though
this guy was beating the stuffings out of them, they would love
them anyway. That was what they were emphasizing.
It came from something for them to live by. And then they had
almost the entire Chapter of 1 Corinthians. Let's
see. 1 Corinthians. Let me see. 13. And you will recognize this too. Though I speak the tongues of
men and angels and have not love or charity, I am become as a
sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the
gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge,
and though I have all faith and so that I can move mountains
and have not charity, I am nothing. And it goes on. We beareth all
things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all
things. Love never faileth. For where there are prophecies,
they shall be done away. Where there be tongues, they
shall cease. Whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.
Again, they were looking at things that gave them hope in what they
could do. Not one, and I mean this, not
one reference, and I tried to read everything that was online
about this a long time ago. Not one. But I see the mercy
and grace of God in Christ whom crucified. It was all about how
do you survive when somebody's beating you? You hope in Christ,
but it's all what they were doing. The same thing the Jews did.
They took this thing that God said, keep this spiritual thing
before the eyes of your soul. And it made something physical
out of it. And there's a phrase for that in scripture. Not what he has done, but what
I do. Example, Highway 42 Church. Salvation is by grace for a purpose,
to do good works. This week, the sign says, Christians
hear, Christians see, Christians do. Reminds me of the monkeys. It's all about what they have
done and what they can do to preserve themselves. And Craig
said a different way last week. Idolatry. What is the biggest
idol there is? A little four letter word. S-E-L-L. Self. It was looking at what
they could do to gain the things they needed. The hope. The help. And on and on. And the scriptural
statement for that is Isaiah 59. Surely, if you're talking
about doing for yourself, as opposed to what Christ has done
for me, surely you turn things upside down. It's like the clay
saying to Potter, you can't make me, you didn't make me, you have
no understanding, I'll make myself. So it is totally turned upside
down. Now, I'm looking at this statement. These prisoners, the Jews, were
absolutely ignorant of the righteousness required of God Almighty. So
Romans Paul says, what do they do? And they do something. They
go about to establish their own righteousness and do not submit
to the righteousness of God Almighty. So the Jews in a religious form,
men in a prisoner's war, in a natural man form, they do the same thing.
What can I do to survive this prison? What can I do to give
my self-righteousness back to God Almighty? Spiritual remembering. What do
you and I call to mind again concerning what Christ says,
this do in remembrance of me? What do you remember? Is it specific
verse? I was telling Doug, man, I can't,
my memory is about shot. I just can't remember the things
that I used to. I used to, every Sunday, They
gave me a Sunday school verse, and I'd go back the next Sunday,
and just as proud as a peacock, stand up and say, yes, ma'am,
here it is. Doug, the one time I didn't do it, I stood up and
said, yes, ma'am, I can do it. And she called on me. I had no
clue. But I'll never forget that verse.
Never forget. It had burned on my memory. And
it was, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with
God, and the Word was God. And she tried to hear it. I said,
Bill? She said, in. I said, in. The beginning, the
beginning. And finally she called on somebody
else, but I'll never forget that verse. But the point I'm making
is it's not concerning verses. It's concerning experience. It
concerns the gospel, what you've heard. And these things are written
on our souls and you cannot erase them because God almighty puts
them there at the front lip before our eyes. So what is the first
thing that I see as a front list before my eyes? What is man? And who am I? And the scripture
responds to that. So here is what is written on
the eyes of my soul. I am nothing but dust and clay. Isaiah makes this statement.
Harken, harken means listen diligently. Look, stop, listen. Harker says,
pause my soul, look my soul, behold my soul. When he's writing
in his description of what he sees in the scripture. Harken
unto me, you that follow after the righteousness, you that seek
the Lord, and look into the rock, whence you were hewn, and to
the hole of the pit whence you were digged. I am dust and clay
dug from a hole in the ground." Isaiah says it this way. These
are the children of God. These are believers. Isaiah says,
woe is me, I am undone from a man of unclean lips. I am vile. I abhor or hate myself. David says, I'm a worm. Psalms, David says this, man
in his very best state is all together vanity, nothing, empty. New Testament, Paul says, Jesus
Christ came in this world to save sinners of whom I am chief. And he makes this statement,
oh, wretched men that I am. What I would, I don't. And what I shouldn't do, I do. So what does my frontlet say
when I say, what do I see in myself? The same thing as Isaiah,
Job, David, and Paul. It spells one thing. When I look at that and see all
that, I see the word need, N-E-E-D. I need a savior. I cannot help myself. What do I see? I see the scripture. Couldn't quote them. Couldn't
tell you where they are. We are dead and trespassing in
sin, dust. We are deaf, blind, hawk, lame,
lunatic, or ignorant. We walk according to the course
of the world. We are spiritually disobedient. We live under the
lust of the flesh and the desire of the mind. We are the children
of wrath. We are aliens and strangers to
the truth. Every one of them are scriptural
definitions of what we are in ourselves. Yet, the Jews and
these POWs go about to establish their own righteousness and do
not submit themselves to the righteousness of God. They do
not keep what Christ has done in their remembrance. They cannot
remember it, bring it to mind again. Why? Because they've never
experienced it. You have to experience it to
remember it and bring it to mind again. Not once in looking back
do I see there is none that is righteous, there is none that
understand it, there is none that seek it after God. Nowhere
do Jews and these POWs both do the same thing. I see, I hear,
I understand, I put my faith, I do this, as opposed to what
Christ says, remember, tonight I picture the breaking of my
body and the shedding of my blood, the tranquility of the travail
of my soul. That's what I want you to remember.
That's what I want you to see. Often, yet they do just the opposite. It's what they do as for what
Christ has done. Now, I call this front of the
thing a heads-up display. Anybody know what a heads-up
display is? If you've ever been a pilot, now they had this screen, plexiglass,
and it's got a special grid in it that if a pilot wants to see
what to shoot at, the target comes up, little crosshairs,
and it gets the direction to tell you where it is and what
it is. It'll tell you how fast the aircraft is going, whether
the nose is up or down or left or right. All kinds of things.
You don't even have to look down. You're looking through your cockpit,
your canopy. They even make some cars. I've
seen a Corvette that has the tachometer and your speed written
right there on your windshield, and you can see it. And I understand
why, because when I was driving one of these Buddies, 502 horsepower,
six gears, by the time the second gear, you're doing about 70 miles
an hour in a 55. So you put it up there and it
keeps you out of trouble. But the point I'm making, it's
a heads-up display. It's what my vision says, this frontlet
that the script is talking about. When I look up, what do I see
spiritually? My heads up display says N-E-E-D. You need Christ. You need what
he's talking about, that body, that shed blood. You need it. And you never, ever, ever forget
it. And here comes the gracious part.
We forget God had given us the grace that all we see, ourselves
is nothing, Christ is everything. But here is why. Christ says,
I will remember my covenant, that covenant made between the
Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit before the foundation
of the world. It simply says, I will save my
people. You know what? I've got to cut
this thing open. I'm going to get a whooping,
folks. That's OK. I will remember my covenant.
Hebrews 18. I'm going to remember this is
about God. We forget. But God says, I will
remember. That's the remembrance that counts,
not I remember. I like that song. When darkness
veils his lovely face, I rest in his unchanging grace. Even
when my mind can't see enough to remember nothing, it don't
change it. We still rest in his grace. Hebrews 8.10, I will put my word into their
minds. I will write them on their hearts.
You can't forget it when God writes it on your heart. I will be to them a God, and
they shall be to me a people. So it's God remembering his covenant
that gives us a memory. Acts of Corinthians 3.3 says,
the word is not written in ink, but with the spirit of the living
God, not in tables of stone, but in fleshly tables of the
heart." So here is real remembering, but God remembers. Revelation
9-2, by the blood of my covenant, I have set forth the prisoners
out of the pit. So God says here in Revelation,
that pit that we were dug from, that Isaiah talked about, he
said, I have delivered you from that pit. You clay ball, you
piece of dust, I've delivered you. How? By the blood of my
covenant. God remembers his covenant. Jeremiah
38, 17. Thou hast in love of my soul
delivered me from the pit of corruption and hath cast my sins
behind thy back. Not only does he take us out
of this pit, that my mind eye says you are taken from that
pit, delivered from that pit, and that's all I'm worth is something
out of a pit. He said, in love, I've delivered
you out of that pit and taken all your transgressions and put
them behind my back. Psalms 103.12. as far as the
east is from the west, so hath he removed our iniquities from
us." What? He said, I'm remembering
my covenant, the covenant of my blood. Your sins are behind
you. I take your sins and cast them
as far as the east is from the west, an infinite distance. Hebrews 8.12. I will be merciful
to their unrighteousness and their iniquities will I remember
no more. So if you forget everything I
said this morning, just remember one thing. Christ says, you piece
of dust, I've delivered you and I have taken you by my mercy
and my grace and the blood of my covenant And I've taken every
sin you committed, all chief of sinners. I cast them as far
as the east is from the west. And God says, I remember their
sins no more. Just as pure and righteous and
holy and absolutely possible in Christ. He says, that's all
I see. I don't remember anything else. Paul says in Ephesians 2.4, God
who is rich in mercy for his great love, when he loved us
even when we were dead in trespassing and sins, has quickened us together
with Christ. How did he take us out of the
pit? What did he deliver us to? He put us in Christ. In Christ. By grace are you saved. And raised
us up together, us with Christ. and made us to sit in heavenly
places in Christ Jesus. All the blessings, the mercy,
and grace, and mighty works of God is exactly what Moses was
telling him. Before you go to the promised
land, teach your children, keep this as a front before your eyes. That's what it says in Corinthians. Remember me in my sacrifice to
surveil my soul for you. Same thing. And what do we end
up with? Accepted in a beloved. For what purpose? To the praise
of the glory of his grace. So here is what we remember. That remembering is not something
that we do, although what we see and call to our mind concerns
Christ and crucified, remember this, God does not remember our
sins. Now that's real remembering.
If you had to select a single verse out of all the scripture
to chalk up to your memory and never forget What would it be? Rupert read one last week. It
said, Hawker said, this was the most comprehensive verse in all
the scripture. I don't like statements particularly
like that because Christ is all is about as comprehensive as
you can get and about as simple as you can get. Jonah's statement, salvation
is of the Lord, is a simple statement. comprehensive and first Corinthians
130 and I had to go back and read
it because let me start 29 no flesh or glory
in his presence but of him or ye in Christ Jesus who of God
is made unto us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption. And that's it. It's what else
do you need? Wisdom. The excellency of the
knowledge of Jesus Christ. What is that knowledge? He dug
me out of the pit and cast my sin just as far as the east as
from the west and does not remember them more. Why? because he remembers
his covenant. He remembers that, but he cannot
remember my sin. That's wisdom and righteousness.
What righteousness do we have? Oh, it says none. He is our righteousness. Holiness
or sanctification, it says he is made this for us. And that point, He's not just
righteous. He says, I am your righteousness. He's not just holy or sanctified. I am your holiness. Redemption. It's not just he
died, but I redeemed, I bought you with the price of my blood.
And to make it personal, he did this for me. He did this for
us. He did this while we were yet
dead in trespass and sin, no ability whatsoever. So remembering,
I say, I don't remember scriptures that I can quote verbatim. And I know some people that can
quote almost the whole Bible to you. I have no clue. But I do
remember this. I know what I am, which is nothing. I know what He is. He is all. He is all what? My wisdom, my
righteousness, my sanctification, and my redemption. And it's not
something we do of God. In Christ, he is made these unto
you and me, us. So remember that. I am gonna get a big whooping,
I tell you that. And again, I apologize for doing