All right, brethren, if you will,
let's turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 11. As Bob read to us this morning,
I pray I can bring you meat and not a whipping. And I pray I
can have your attention today. I hope you can really pay attention
to what I have to tell you. By nature, this old man in us,
we love ritualism and we love ceremony because it makes us
look good. And what we're going to do today,
we're going to be observing the Lord's table. This is the most
important and most serious thing we can do on this earth. Our Lord gave us two ordinances. We are dead to the law. Law has
no bounds on a person that Christ died for, but he gave us two
ordinances. Now in this life, I'm more concerned
about following the law, and if I happen to get around to
observe an ordinance, a county ordinance or something, I'll
get around to it. in spiritual matters. I am dead
to the law. If you're His, you are dead to
the law. You want to honor it, but you're
dead to it. But He has given us an ordinance. Oh, we want to follow that ordinance,
don't we? We want to obey Him, the One
who gave it. Now, the two ordinances He gave
us was believers' baptism, and the Lord's table. I was going
to try to do a message on both at the same time, and that ain't
possible. We'll look at believer's baptism
again next week. He gave us both of these ordinances,
and both of them go hand in hand. The source of both ordinances,
who commanded it, is the same. The motivation that believers
have to observe these ordinances What's inside of us? Our conscience
that weighs on us. A new man in us that pushes us
to say, I need to observe these ordinances. That's the same for
all believers. The people that the ordinances
are given to are the same. His people, the Lord's people,
Christ's sheep, that's who these are directed to. Now if you've
ever heard me, I pray, if you've ever heard me preach for any
length of time, paid any attention at all to me, you've heard man
is fallen. We cannot keep the law. There
is no goodness in us. We in and of ourselves, we are
wicked and we are unable to please God. But today I pray we can
see the one that is able to please God. The one that's able to honor
God, Christ our Lord. Now why do we practice these?
Each of these ordinances, it's the same for both. While we practice
baptism, our Lord commanded it. He told His disciples, He said,
Go ye therefore and teach in all nations, baptizing them in
the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Teaching
them, that means instructing them to observe all things whatsoever
I have commanded you. You do it. He tells us to. Secondly,
we were baptized because the Lord was baptized. He commands
us and He was baptized. Matthew 3, it says, Then came
Jesus from Galilee to Jordan unto John to be baptized of him,
John the Baptist. But John forbade him, saying,
I have need to be baptized of thee, and thou comest to me. Lord, why would you come to me?
You need to baptize me. I don't need to baptize you.
And Jesus answered and saying unto him, Suffer it to be so
now, for thus it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness. Boy, if we could get our heads
wrapped around that. Child of God must be baptized. What if you hear of Christ, know
Him, and you die on the way home? It becometh us to fulfill all
righteousness. We're one in Him. and then John
suffered him. Now thirdly, the Lord commanded
it. He was baptized and the apostles,
they delivered this ordinance to the early church. What's that
mean? God's people obeyed him then
and God's people obey him now. Why do we observe the Lord's
table? Our master commanded it. He said, look to his people and
he said take Eat. He observed it. He prayed before
this last Passover meal. And the apostles delivered the
commandment to us. His people willingly obey our
master. Look there in 1 Corinthians 11
and verse 2. 1 Corinthians 11, 2. Paul says, Now I praise you,
brethren, He's not going to whip him the whole time. He comforts
him some. I praise you, brethren, that
you remember me in all things. He said, pray for me. And I praise
you that you do pray for me. And keep the ordinance as I deliver
them to you. Keep these ordinances. He told
them then and we're told now. Lord's people keep His ordinances.
Now someone once said, when we remember the Lord at His table,
this is the closest we come to worship on this earth. We mess it up. If there's anything
I can do, I can do it wrong. but the Lord corrects the stone. These Corinthians, they made
a mockery of this and the Lord corrected it. Everything is always resolved
and everything is always corrected from the Lord by the preaching
of Christ and Him crucified. We got a problem, we got a division,
we got a upset anything, something's wrong in the heart or outside
the heart, it's corrected by preaching Christ and Him crucified.
When we truly are brought to remember our Savior, who He is,
what He accomplished, why He had to accomplish it. He had
to accomplish this. He had to go to that cross. And
where He is now, we must bow to Him. We must worship Him. We must be thankful to Him. And we can only praise His name. There's nothing of us in it.
What we will observe today is the Lord's table. His table,
not my table. His tape, just like we read there
in Exodus 12. That's the Lord's Passover. Christ,
our Passover lamb, is the sacrifice for His people. It is through
Him we are saved, that our sins are put away, and that we are
accepted. through His blood. Our faith
does not put away our sin. Our repentance does not put away
sin. Now, a child of God, they have
faith. They are given faith. They are given repentance. But it's the object of our faith.
It's the one that we turn to, away from ourselves and to Him
that saves us. Christ our Lord saves His people
from their sins through His blood. Now Paul's dealing here in chapter
11 with the Lord's Table. The Corinthians are guilty of
doing a lot of things wrong, including observing the Lord's
Table. But this was for our good. It was for their good, too. It's
for our good now, for our instruction. We can learn a lot of things
from the Church at Corinth. But all that they did, and all
these horrible things that When we do that sometimes, if my children
ask me what those words mean, I kind of don't want to explain
it to them. Everything they did, you know who they were? That's
the Lord's people. That's His church. What will
a believer not do? They'll do anything but turn
from Christ. They'll do anything but bow to
another God. Those people in Corinth, they
were sinners saved by grace alone. All you and I on this earth will
ever be, the highest thing I can ever attain to is being a sinner
saved by grace alone. And when this world is over,
I'll sing for eternity, I'm a sinner saved by grace alone. Verse 17,
1 Corinthians 11, 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. You are coming together for the
better. or you're not coming together
for the better. You're not coming to this place to worship Christ,
to praise Him, to sing His name. You're coming for the worse.
What you are doing is not good, Paul's saying, and I will not
praise you. Verse 18, For first of all, when you come together
in the church, I hear that there be divisions among you, and I
partly believe it. I'm hearing from others, he had
some good information, that there's division in this church, and
he says he partially believes it. Isn't that a good way to
address something like a division? Giving benefit of the doubt until
that matter is settled? He said, I halfway believe it,
but we're going to deal with it. Verse 19, for there must
be also heresies among you that they which are approved be made
manifest among you. Christ told his disciples that
offenses must come. If you're a believer, there will
be trials. There will be offenses. There's
going to be some suffering and there's going to be some persecution
in this life. whether it's emotional or physical, there's going to
be trials. Hard times must come. But there's a purpose for the
heresies here at this church in Corinth. It's not just error,
but heresies. There's a reason that God left
this continue, that they which are approved, those that are
the true servants of the Lord, his true people, may be made
manifest among you. God in His perfect providence
and His wisdom, He allowed this division to happen so that His
true sheep, His true children would stand out. He sifts the
wheat in the chaff, doesn't He? Wheat in the tares. Now verse
20. When you come together, therefore, into one place, this is not to
eat the Lord's Supper. They didn't come together for
the purpose of eating the Lord's Supper, to honoring Him. We've
been gathered here today to sing His praises, to glorify Christ,
to partake in His table, and to remember Him. What these Corinthians
were doing is they were having a big party. The old writers
called it a love feast. But some were wealthy in that
congregation, and they would make up these big, fancy meals.
I'm talking filet mignon with funny-named sauces on it. Good
stuff. And they'd bring it in, and they
would not share them with the poorer members. Imagine that. I'm bringing a big old feast.
They'd say, back off. This is mine. You go over there
and eat. Division. Then the poor members would come
and they would be embarrassed. Well, he brought something big
and fancy and I didn't have nothing to bring. He won't even let me
eat it. He lets me know about it. Divison. Verse 20, when you come together,
therefore, into one place, this is not to eat the Lord's Supper.
You're not coming for that. For in eating, everyone taketh
before other his own supper, and one is hungry. We've seen this a lot recently
there in 1 John, but if we have this world's goods and we do
not share it in love with our brethren, the love of God is
not in us. If we're going to let one sit there and be hungry,
why eat a big old steak? Some believers are financially
well off. I don't like to use the term blessed them. Our blessing
is not of this earth, but the Lord has been generous to some
brethren, and some He hasn't. But if our brother is hungry,
the Scripture tells us we are to feed him. That is physically
and that is spiritually. If someone comes to us spiritually
hungry, we give them the sincere milk of the Word. Tell them the
truth. But these people, they were not doing that. That's a
great division in this church. Verse 21, For in eating everyone
taketh before another his own supper, and one is hungry, and
another is drunken. Instead of coming to worship
the Lord Jesus, to observe His table, that is picturing His
body and His blood for God's elect at Calvary. Some were attending
there just to show off what they had. Look at me, look how good
I've done in this world. Some were there to prevent others
from eating. There's a hierarchy. You've got to go through me first
before you get to this table. So, Paul's dealing with it. Or
to even get drunk. Physically, some were getting
drunk. This is drunk on power. Drunk
on self. Drunkenness of this world. Have
a big party. Verse 22. What? Have ye not houses to eat and
drink in? Can't you take care of all this before you come to
service?" He showed up starving to death. He's asking, he said, can't you
take care of your appetite of the flesh before you come to
the place of worship? Can't you satisfy your own lust
before you come here? We are going to have a meal after service
today. That's not what Paul is correcting
here. He's not talking about believers getting together and
eating together and filling your belly up. But he's talking about
this Lord's table by itself. We don't make a mockery of this.
We don't come foolishly and flippantly to His table. Verse 22, Well,
have you not houses to eat and drink? in or despise ye the church
of God and shame them that have not." He said, are you doing
these things because you hate the church here? Are you wanting
to just shame those that are poor? Is that your goal in acting
like this? What shall I say to you? Shall
I praise you in this? Do you want me to give you an
attaboy for doing all these things? He said, I praise you not. No
way. This is serious. This is not
a matter to be taken lightly. Look down at verse 30. 1 Corinthians
11 30. For this cause many are weak
and sickly among you and many sleep. This got so out of hand
that the Lord sent illness to these brethren, to some of them.
And it says many slept. The Lord took them out of it. This isn't a ritual. This isn't
just something we do out of habit. This isn't a ceremony for pop
and circumstance for us to feel good about ourselves and everybody
can see us as holy. This is serious. This is the
Lord's table. How do we fix our erring brethren? Lord's dealing with this and
this is serious. What am I supposed to do? Preach Christ and Him
crucified to them. I tell you men, look in verse
23, 1 Corinthians 11, 23. For I have received of the Lord
that which also I delivered unto you. The Lord taught Paul this. He wasn't taught by the apostles.
That's what made him an apostle. Christ delivered these things
to him personally, and this is exactly what he's given the church
of Corinth. He gives us now. This is not
an ordinance that man gave. This isn't a tradition of men,
something we made up. This isn't something a denomination
made up. Well, we're Baptists, we do this.
We're Episcopalian, we do that. No, the Lord gave this and Paul's
delivering it to them and it's delivered to us. This is serious. Verse 23, 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. And when
he had given thanks, he broke and said, Take, eat. This is my body which is broken
for you. This do in remembrance of me."
Here's a commandment. Take. The Lord commanded that. What's that mean? He says, Come
unto me that ye might have life. He hands it out and says, take.
We take it. Eat. Consume it. Take it all. This is my body.
This symbolizes the Lord's body on the cross. Now this is not
a sacrament. This isn't a means by which we
receive grace. This is a declaration of something
that's already been done. This doesn't do something for
us. And it doesn't physically turn into Christ's body and Christ's
blood inside our tummies. That doesn't happen. This is
a token, just like that Passover. This is a picture for us so we
can remember what really did happen. Not what's really happening
right now, what really did happen, what He did. It says, take and
eat. And now what we do every time we hear the Gospel preached,
By faith, don't we eat His flesh and drink His blood and remember
who Christ is and what He did for His people and where He is
now? Having our pure minds stirred up? That's what you're doing
right now if you're His. You're taking Christ, His Word,
and you're eating. You are consuming. There in Exodus
12, we remember reading about the Passover lamb. And he says,
eat all of it. Take, eat, eat every bit of it. All must be consumed. By God-given
faith, we intake all of Christ. What's that mean? We don't take
just little nibbles here and there. Ooh, that's good. I'll
listen to that part. Ooh, I like that part. That's
a savory piece on the end. We don't just take what suits
us, we receive all of Christ. Our gospel is either all of Christ
or none of Him. It's all or nothing. Him or nothing. That's what we have. He says,
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. And when He had sucked, told
Him we were required to do this, the Lord took His table. When
he had sucked, saying, this cup is the New Testament in my blood,
this do ye as oft as you drink it in remembrance of me. The
blood of Christ approved, it declared, like our constitution,
it ratified the New Testament covenant, the Lord's promise
to his people. What more could confirm a covenant
to a people than the Lord's blood? That's set in stone, isn't it? As often as you do it, as often
as you drink it in remembrance of me. How often do we observe
the Lord's table? He doesn't tell us, does He?
He just says, every time you do it, you remember me. Remember him let's turn over
to Matthew 27. I'll tell you though anytime.
I can't if I'm at the house. I can't hardly Five rarely have
a glass of wine. I can't take a sip of wine without
saying this is remember to be him I can't eat breakfast lunch
or dinner for a good reason eat three meals that maybe we all
eat more meals. Hey remember him more often If you're His,
you can't do it. Don wrote a lot about that for
baptism and the Lord's table. We do this from a consciousness
sake. I kept getting hung up on that
word, our conscience does this. Why? If we're His, I don't have
to say nothing to nobody. I don't have to pick on nobody,
I don't have to pressure nobody. The Lord will touch His child
and they'll say every time they eat a meal, I need to remember
Christ. Every time we come to this table,
I need to remember Him. He said, I need to be baptized.
I was buried with Him. I was rose with Him. Matthew
27. How can we not remember our Savior
and take in this bread and wine? This unleavened bread, this sinless
body of His who knew no sin. It was broken for a multitude
of sinners. His people throughout time and
throughout the world. And His blood was shed for the
sins of a multitude of sinners, more than the sands of the sea.
And all of that, His broken body, His blood shed for the sins of
His people, it's finished. Complete. It's done. In Matthew
27, we reference this, son. We should read it more often.
It's good for us to be reminded, and with the spirit too, of knowing
our fall, knowing what we deserve. If I've been convicted of sin,
I know what God's law requires, what I deserve. Matthew 27, again
in verse 24. When Pilate saw that he could
prevail nothing, but that rather a tumult was made, he took water
and washed his hands before the multitude, saying, I am innocent
of the blood of this just person. See ye to it. He said he's just. Then answered all the people
and said, His blood be on us and our children. Then released
He Barnabas unto them. And when He had scourged Jesus,
He delivered Him to be crucified." Now remember, this wasn't a Jewish
whipping. This wasn't 39 save one. This
is a Roman scourging. They whipped Him until they got
tired of whipping Him. Then the soldiers of the governor
took Jesus into the common hall and gathered unto Him the whole
band of soldiers. and they stripped him and put
a scarlet robe on him. And when they had planted a crown
of thorns, they put it upon his head and a reed in his right
hand, and they bowed the knee before him and mocked him, saying,
Hail, King of the Jews. And they spit
upon him and took the reed and smoked him on the head. And after
they had mocked him, they took the robe off from him and put
on his own raiment on him and led him away to crucify him.
And as they came out, they found a man of Cyrene, Simon by name,
and they compelled to bear his cross. And when they were coming
to the place called Galgotha, that is to say, a place of the
skull, they gave him vinegar to drink, mingled with gall.
And when he had tasted thereof, he would not drink. And they
crucified him and parted his garments, casting lots that it
might be fulfilled. which was spoken by the prophet,
that they parted My garments among them, and upon My vesture
did they cast lots. And sitting down, they watched
Him there." This was a spectacle. This was entertainment. This
was a show to those people sitting there. They didn't have drive-in
movies. And the whole time that they
stared at our Master there, everything was fulfilling the Gospel. Every
jot and tittle. And in ignorance, they were declaring,
He is God. He's just. He is King of the
Jews. Oh, what a great Savior this
is. In ignorance, they declared it.
Verse 37, And it was said over His head, His accusation written,
This is Jesus, the King of the Jews. Then there were two thieves
crucified with Him. One on the right hand, the other
on the left. And they that passed by reviled Him, wagging their
heads and saying, Thou that destroyest the temple and buildest it in
three days, save Thyself. Thou be the Son of God, come
down from the cross. Likewise also the chief priests
mocking Him with the scribes and elders said, He saved others,
Himself He cannot save. You can underline that if you
want to. That's the truth. He saved others. He saved his
people. And in doing so, he must die for his people. He can't
save himself. And if he be king of Israel,
let him come down from the cross and we will believe him. Now,
there's the opposite, all in one verse. They declared the
truth. They said, if he'll come down
from that cross, we'll believe him. No, they wouldn't. If we had
a miracle performed in front of us today, right now, we would
not believe unless the Lord did a work in the heart, unless faith
was given, unless a new spirit was given. That's the only way
this old man could ever have anything to believe in. It takes
a miracle of God in our hearts to believe on Christ. Verse 43,
He trusted in God. Let Him deliver him now." They're
declaring He trusted in them. If He will have him, for He said,
I'm the Son of God. Everything's declaring that He's
the Christ. Verse 44, the thieves also, no sense plural, both thieves,
which were crucified with Him, cast the same in His teeth. They were throwing the same accusations
at Him. Now at some point, One of these thieves had a change
of thinking. One of them had a change of heart,
change of mind about himself, about man, who man is, about
who God is, what he requires, his holiness, and about Christ,
the one hanging next to him. That's repentance. That's turning
from what I think about man and God and Christ and turning to
what's true about man, God, and Christ. A total change of mind. Verse 45, Now from the sixth
hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth
hour. And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice.
Isaiah 52 says His visage, His body, His image was marred more
than any other man. But after being beaten, after
being tortured for hours, hanging on a cross for three hours, He
cried with a loud voice, what strength. I bet those two thieves
couldn't whisper. He cried with a loud voice saying,
Eli, Eli, lama sabachthanai, that is to say, my God, my God,
why hast thou forsaken me? Some of them that stood there,
when they heard that said, this man calleth for Elias. And straightway one of them ran
and took a sponge and filled it with vinegar and put it on
a reed and gave him to drink. The rest said, let be. Let us see whether Elias will
come to save him. They said, hold on. Let's see
if a miracle happens. Jesus, when he had cried again
with a loud voice, Yielded up the ghost. He yielded up his
ghost. They didn't take his life from
him, he gave it up. He commanded his spirit to leave
that body. He died on purpose. His purpose. Back to our text, 1 Corinthians
chapter 11. We see, we're brought into remembrance. What happened? When we read the
words and we know that this should be me, I should be beaten and
tortured and mocked and the Lord should forsake me. That's what
I deserve. And I remember I have a substitute. I have a mediator in Christ our
Lord. 1 Corinthians 11.24, and when He
had given thanks, He broke it and said, 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, when he had supped,
saying, this cup is the New Testament in my blood, this do ye, as oft
as you drink it, in remembrance of me. For as oft as ye eat this
bread and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord's death till
he come. You show His substitution of
what we deserve and we show that His acceptable sacrifice in His
resurrection. What a remembrance. We'll see
us in a minute. To take this table, you have
to do it in remembrance of Him. How can you remember somebody
you don't know? Can't have a memory of someone you've never met.
Let's do it in remembrance of Him. Verse 27 says, 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. Now by our nature that we're born with, what I came
into this world as, none of us are worthy of taking this bread
and this wine because Christ is our worthiness. When we know
Him, when we remember Him, that's what we're declaring. My body's
no good. My blood's no good. His is. That's what's needed. My worthiness
is in Him. And verse 29 qualifies this unworthiness. Not discerning the Lord's body. What's that mean? That's not
discerning who He is. Who Christ is. He is God. And
He's a man. He's the God-man, our kinsman-redeemer. Made like we are, but still fully
and completely God. To take this table unworthily
is to discern what He did. What happened on that cross?
Did Christ satisfy and honor God's justice on that cross?
Did He put away sin? Did He redeem a people? To say
Christ died for all people is not discerning the Lord's body.
You don't know what His body did. That body was successful
as Savior, was a successful Savior. And to say that is to take His
table unworthily, to not discern Him. Discerning His body is declaring
where He is now. He is seated at the right hand
of the Majesty on high, making intercession for His people as
our High Priest. His body was the sacrifice and
His blood was the full atonement for His sheep. That's to discern
His body. Verse 28, But let a man examine
himself. That's not my job. I'm not here to whip nobody,
give you a written test, a block of instruction until you pass
these tests and do these things. Then you can come to the Lord.
But you've got to go through me first. Let every man examine
himself. You examine your faith, your
repentance. Do you believe? That's the only hedge about this
table. That's the only hedge about believer's
baptism. What did that eunuch ask Paul?
He said, there's water. What prevents me from being baptized?
Philip said, you believe? He said, with all my heart. Jesus Christ is the Son of God.
And he said, they both went down in the water. But let every 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. For this cause many
are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep. For if we would
judge ourselves, we should not be judged. But when we are judged,
We are chastened to the Lord. When we get sick, when we get
ill, when we die, when the Lord chastens us, that's not judgment
for his people. That's chastening. That's a father
chastening. He handles his house as he sees
fit. He handles his children as he
sees fit. Might make them sick. Might make
them sleep. But we are to judge ourselves
and not judge others. that we should not be condemned
with the world. Wherefore, my brethren, when
ye come together to eat, tarry one for another. And if any man
hungry, let him eat at home, that ye come not together unto
condemnation, and the rest I will set in order when I come." He
said, whenever you come to this table, everything I've just told
you, everything I've put you in remembrance of, you come for
this by itself. Look into Him alone. Leave the
other cares at home. We observe the Lord's table today
in remembrance of our Lord, discerning His body. And if you believe
the gospel, if you know Christ, because this is serious, if you
know Him, you believe Him, He's given you a heart for Him, you
take, you eat, and you drink. Amen.