I was lost far away from the
Savior, and as foul as I was said to be, I wondered if I could
be redeemed. Who said, who said like me I
wandered in the darkness? And your thoughts fill my heart
with sadness. Left me waiting for a sinner like me. I'm waiting in the dark, only I'll rise. to me. So crush the original,
have power to save even sinners like me. I look and look He was speaking so kindly to
me, that I cried like a king of old sinners. Can you say that there was a sinner like me? Jesus. And oh, what a prayer
came to me. My heart was filled with His praise and He said, who's sinner like me?
Now all the laughter they have lost And his light now is shining for me And now unto others I'm telling I'll be saved if you serve like
me. And we'll rise 30 years onward. And I, the dear Savior, shall see our praise in forever and
ever. And I thought I had sung that song
before. Thank you, Brother Dan. Our Lord said to his disciples
that with desire he had desired to eat the Passover with them. in full respect and reverence
for what he was saying, I can feel the same way concerning
this table. We've been here three, four months
now. We're pretty settled in, so tonight
we're going to partake of the Lord's Supper together. And I've
been wanting to do this with you. This is a pure form of worship. While it is—some of you may understand
what I'm saying—while it is a solemn occasion, it's serious, it's
to be reverenced, yet it's not a morose or sad time by any means,
not at all. Our Lord said, The hour cometh,
and now is. When the true worshipers shall
worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for the Father
seeketh such to worship Him. God is a spirit, and they that
worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth. If God is going to be rightly
worshiped, He is to be worshiped in spirit, that is, in the heart,
and in truth, according to the gospel, the truth of Christ. True worship of God is heart
worship. True worship is a broken and
contrite heart before God, a bowing down before this thrice holy
God, acknowledging who he is, what we are in our great need
of the Savior and his sacrifice. That's true worship. Anything
else cannot be rightly called worship. God is unseen. He's a spirit. Man is seen. He's flesh. God is worshiped
and known inwardly in the spirit, but man, being fleshly, likes
to have outward forms and so forth, doesn't he? Outward symbols. And he tries to approach God
with outward deeds and materials. But the Scripture plainly says
that he's a spirit, and he's to be approached in a spiritual
fashion. But man is a sign-and-a-symbol
lover. Man is very religious by nature.
He's a sign-and-a-symbol lover. He loves tradition and rituals. And man, consequently, has come
up with all sorts of symbols of religion, all sorts of symbols,
all sorts of outward shows of piety and so forth. High places—you
remember our study on the high places in the Old Testament.
Men and women like huge cathedrals, and they like all that goes with
them—the stained glass, the statues, the pictures, the robes. They
like their preachers to wear robes, you know. real official
or real holy, if you will. They like crosses. They like
beads and altars and all these sorts of things. Man is a symbol
of it. But someone said the more you
have to have on the outside, the less you have on the inside.
The less you have spiritually, the less communion you have with
God. real true communion. The more
you have to drum it up on the outside with all these sorts
of things. This was illustrated by the Pharisees. Those men went
about doing and looking like a peacock in their religion. They looked very pious and very
religious. They played the part to the extreme. They wore the long robes. They
wore the phylacteries. Now these phylacteries were little
boxes, little containers little leather containers with scripture
verses in them. And they tied these to their
heads, and they tied them to their wrists, and so forth. The Word of God, bearing about
the Word of God. That's not where the believer
has the Word of God. He has it in the heart. He has
it in the heart. But they look very religious,
nevertheless. Very religious. They're long
robes, and they tried to play the part. with their long public
prayers and fasting and almsgivings. But the Son of God came down. God himself came down, the only
true holy one. How did he look? He looked like
an ordinary man, didn't he? You couldn't tell him apart from
the rest of the people. He was on the inside, like that
tabernacle in the wilderness. Look, very plain on the outside,
very plain. Nothing about him that we should
desire, no comeliness, but only get to know him on the inside.
And the glory of God, the Shekinah glory of God shines in that package,
that tabernacle. Well, does this mean that we're
to do away with all outward forms of religion, all outward external
shows of religion? Turn back to 2 Kings, chapter
23. that passage that we studied
a few months back, a couple of months back, 2 Kings, chapter
23. Does this mean we're to do away
with all externals of religion? Well, yes and no. Do you remember
this story when Josiah found the book, the priest, and the
scribe, the fellows who were supposed to be about the tabernacle
ministering the things of God. They were in there counting money.
I don't know what the scribe was doing. I guess he was, well,
it's no telling. They were counting money. They
were going about something or another. But they weren't paying
attention to the Word of God because they found it and dusted
it off and read it. And they said, we found the book.
Looks like the law. They should have been about the
book, reading the book. And they handed it to Josiah.
Remember, they read it to him. It made no impression upon them,
but when they read it to him, the word conquered him, struck
him, it pricked his heart. And he said, we've been going
about things all wrong around here. We've been worshiping God
in the wrong way, and not according to the book. And so in chapter
23 of 2 Kings, look at it in verse 3, the king, he was struck
by this book, Josiah. Oh, he was convicted by this
book, and he stood and read the book, the last part of that verse
3. He read the words of the covenant
that were written in the book, and all the people stood to the
covenant. And look at verse 6. And after
he read the words to the people, the proper meaning, the true
worship of God, he started cleaning the house out. You remember this?
He says in verse 6, he brought out the grove, this is an idol
of some sort, from the house of the Lord without Jerusalem,
under the brook, and burned it and threw it in the river. That's
what we need to do with all these symbols of religion, all these
crosses and robes and beads and all that. Grind them up and throw
them in the river. Throw them in the pig river.
That's appropriately named for that stuff. Hogwash. It's swine's
food, isn't it? No good. Throw it in the river.
Verse 7, He broke down the houses of the Sodomites. They were by
the houses of the Lord, where the women wove hangings. Throw
away these little tapestries. Throw away all these little memorials.
And He brought all the priests out of the cities of Judah, all
these false prophets that defiled the high places. I don't know how He did it, but
He went in and tore up these little they had made up to their
gods, where they had burned incense and so forth. And he broke these
high places down, verse 12. And the altars, get rid of that
altar, get rid of that mourner's bench, tear it up. The altars
were on top of the upper chamber of Ahaz, which the kings of Judah
had made, and the altars which Manasseh had made, and the two
courts of the house of the Lord. The king beat them to pieces,
broke them down, threw them in the river, in the big The high
places, every one of those he could find, he told them to smithereens,
get rid of this stuff. Verse 14, he broke in pieces
the images, that is the statues, all these busts of past saints
and so forth, memorials. Verse 20, when he slew all the
priests of the high places, all these false priests that were
there upon the altars, and he burned their bones upon them.
And if it wasn't against the law, I wish it could be done
today. And then, verse 21, you remember this? And then the king,
after he had done all of this, gotten rid of all these shows
of religion's moves, all this pagan idolatry, cleaned the house
out. Verse 21, the king said, now
there's just one way to worship God. One thing left to do from
here on out. Not all these outward shows,
but just one thing. Look at it. And he commanded
all people saying, now, you just keep the Passover. That's the
only thing written in the book. That's the only form that the
Lord commands us to keep. Keep the Passover unto the Lord,
your God. Now, just like it's written,
don't add anything to it or take anything away from it. Just like
it's written in the book. Just like it's written. By the authority of the Son of
God himself, the Word made flesh, we are to do away with all these
outward symbols of religion and only keep one thing—the Lord's
Supper. That's the only thing. The only
thing. But, through his wisdom, through his divine wisdom where
he said, remember that a thing will be established at the mouth
of two or three witnesses? Not just the Lord's Supper, but
baptism. See the wisdom of God in making
that statement? Not only the Lord's Supper, but baptism. So
we're left with only two things, two, for lack of a better word,
two outward forms. But if that's all these are to
you, then they're useless. If they're just a form, they're
useless. So, what is this all about? What is this ordinance all about?
The children may ask this. What, mommy, what is this? What are you taking this for?
What is this wine and bread? What is this all about? What's
it all about? Well, let me say this first. I linked
both the Lord's table and baptism together. Brother Parks and I
were talking about this yesterday. Because I'm certain that baptism
and the Lord's table are vitally connected. Listen to me, pay
attention everyone. Baptism, turn over to Acts chapter
2 with me. Acts chapter 2. Baptism is the public confession of Christ.
This is the way. Baptism is the way. Water immersion
is the way that the Lord commanded for his people to confess him
publicly. Not the Lord's Day. That's not
the confession of faith, but baptism is. Baptism. Look at Acts 2, verse 41. It says that then they that gladly
received his word were baptized. Those that believed those that
trusted in Christ, those that rested in Him and Him alone,
that really and truly had a saving work of grace in their hearts
by God Himself. They were baptized. Here's water. What does hinder me to be baptized?
Do you believe? I believe. I want to be baptized. And they were baptized. And the
same day there were added unto them about three thousand souls,
and they continued steadfastly in apostles' doctrine, in fellowship,
and in breaking of bread, and in prayer." So you see, they
were baptized first, and then they partook of the Lord's table.
So I, based upon this scripture and these scriptures, I insist
that this table be taken by baptized believers. say that it must be
this man or any other man. Doesn't matter. That's before,
that's between you and the Lord. The vessel's not important. But
the confession is. It's for baptized believers,
this table is. But, like I said, baptism is
the public confession of Christ. The public. This table that we're
going to take up is personal communion. This is a form of
worship. Personal communion with him.
It's very easy. The reason I say all this, and
the importance I put upon it, is that it's very easy to sit
here and just take the bread and the wine, sort of anonymously,
you know. It's very easy to do that. But
it takes the breaking of the heart, the indwelling of the
spirit, to bring a man to the point where he wants to get up
and publicly say, I'm confessing Christ. You see, it's very easy
to sit and partake of these things, but it takes faith and courage
from the Holy Spirit to stand up, go forward publicly confessing
Christ and being baptized before all men, saying that that man
or woman or young person is trusting in Christ and Christ alone. And
then the Lord's save will follow. Well, what does this mean? to
the question there. What does this table mean? What
does this table mean? Well, first of all, it's a memorial. Turn to 1 Corinthians chapter
11. 1 Corinthians chapter 11. This table is a memorial. This table is to remember our
great Redeemer's sacrifice. That's what it's all about. Look
at verse 24 with me, 1 Corinthians 11, verse 24. The Apostle Paul
is repeating here what the Lord and the disciples did. He says,
When he had given thanks, he broke the bread and said, Take,
eat, this is my body, which is broken for you. This do you in
remembrance of me. And 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 you as oft as
you drink it. in remembrance of me." It's a
memorial. A memorial. If during the course of the week,
in the midst of the hustle and the bustle of the crowds, in
the midst of all the wickedness of Sodom that we go through,
in the midst of all this, you've forgotten the Savior, come and
eat. Remember Him. Remember that he
poured out his soul unto death for you. This is not fiction. This is not a myth. This is not
merely a fable. This is the truth. This has really
happened for you. He poured out his soul unto death
for you. He died, Terry, that you may
live. He shed his blood, Charles. for the remission of your sins.
He poured his blood out. I mean, had his body torn to
pieces for you. Remember. He was wounded, Lewis,
for your transgressions. For yours. Brutally wounded. And he was bruised, Vicki. He was bruised for your iniquities.
You're the cause. He was bruised, beaten with a
rod of many stripes. And because of this great sacrifice,
because of this great sacrifice of God's Son, God says, Now,
deliver Ed Berry from going down into the pit. I found a ransom. I found it, the ransom. What
the law requires of Ed Berry? A broken body and shed blood.
Without shedding of blood, there's no remission. I found it, the
Lord said. Deliver him. Get him out of the
pit. Don't let him go to hell. Get him out. I found the ransom. Here it is. The broken body and
shed blood of Jesus Christ himself. So it's a memorial. That's what
it is. It's to remember his sacrifice. And secondly, to remember an
absent friend. It's a memorial to remember his
blessed sacrifice, that great sacrifice of himself. And it's
to remember an absent friend. You know, many of us, nearly
every one of us, we have something to remember a loved one by, maybe
a picture or a token of some sort, a gift. And Christ is our friend, sticks
closer than a brother. And he said, I'm going away.
I'm going away. But I'll come again. I'll come
again to receive you to myself, that where I am, there you may
be also." Now, he's with us always in spirit, but in body he's left
us. He's left us. But someday he's
actually, bodily, going to come back. He's coming back, isn't
he, Moose? He's coming back to receive us
unto himself. So, in the meantime, this day,
as a memory of our absent friend. He's coming back. He's coming
back. This stood as a memorial. So firstly, this table, what
does it mean it's a memorial? Secondly, this table is a show
of faith. Look at verse 26. Not the confession
of faith, but it is nevertheless a show of faith. Verse 26 here
of 1 Corinthians 11. He says, As often as you eat
this bread and drink this cup, you do show the Lord's death. till he come. By eating this
bread and drinking this cup, what we're saying to others is
that, I believe his body was broken for me. I do. And those
that take it, not believing that, says they eat and drink damnation
to themselves. They take it unworthily. This
is for believers. They're taking this and they're
saying, I believe that his body was broken for me. And he shed
his blood for me. For me. And I, for one, I want to remember
the great love wherewith he loved me. I do. And in a measure, we're saying
that before men and women, but in a measure we say to our Lord
also, Lord, by your constraining love and your restraining grace,
I want to remember you and your great sacrifice. I do. I don't
ever want to forget what you've done for me. I don't ever want
to forget that great love. Oh, my. Shamed of Jesus? Yes, I may, when I have no sins
to wash away. What we're saying by taking this
is, Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief. Keep me remembering. Don't let me forget. Don't let
me forget. So it's a memorial. It's an act of faith. And thirdly, communion. This is communion. That's what we call it sometimes,
communion table. Someone may ask this, is there
some sort of mystical power? Is this some sort of mystical
service? Is there some special power in eating and drinking
this? No. There is no magical or powerful,
nothing magical or powerful about bread and wine. It's just bread
and wine. That's all it is. That's all it is. Just as the
body and the blood of Christ—now listen to me. He was flesh and blood like we
are. It was whose it was that was
important. That was the important thing.
That was the important thing. And it's the spirit in which
we do this is what's important about this thing of the communion
table. When we, by faith, come to this table, worshiping our
Lord, seeking to remember him, thinking on his great work, praising
him for it, desiring to commune with him around the table, with
him and with others, then, yes, it is special. It is special. We feed upon it. We feed upon
it. Catholicism says that the bread
and the wine actually becomes the body and the blood of Christ,
don't they? That's what they call transubstantiation. That's
heresy. That's blasphemy. That's crucifying
Christ afresh, isn't it, Terry? That's blasphemy. They make this
out to be another sacrifice. They crucify the Lord afresh.
And the priest takes upon himself the power of forgiveness, and
he issues the bread and the wine to the people, giving and forgiveness
of sins therewith. They say it actually becomes
the body and the blood of Christ. But this man, Christ, after he'd
offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down. One sacrifice. There remains, therefore, now
no more sacrifice for sin. No more. Just one. We don't crucify
him. Again, this is merely a remembrance.
And like I was telling the men in the study, it's the reason
we're not trying to—we're trying to steer as far away from a Catholic
ceremony as we can. The soft music and the candle
lights and the robes and the choir singing and the low lights,
you know. Oh, no. It's merely drinking
some wine and eating some bread and thinking about Christ as
a way of remembrance of Christ. I don't believe at all. I know,
based upon the scriptures, I do not believe in the carnal presence,
that is, the actual bodily presence of Christ in the supper. But
I do believe in the spiritual presence. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Christ said this. He said, except
you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you have no part in me.
And there's some people who say, this is a hard saying. Who can
hear this? And some people walked away from
it. He said in another place, he said, but now the words I
speak, they're spirit and they're life. So what he was saying was
a spiritual thing. Eating his flesh and drinking
his blood was taking him by faith. Taking him by faith. And just
as the blood of bulls and goats could not put away sin, But only
faith in the one that they represented. Only faith in the coming Messiah
that those bulls and those goats and those lambs represented.
Only faith in Him really was imputed to those as righteousness,
like Abraham. Even so, these elements do not
do a thing for us. Not one blessed thing. But only faith in taking these,
confessing and professing our faith in the one that these represent. That's what it's all about. A
very simple, a very simple element. Communion. And Christ said this,
though. Listen. He said to the church
in Revelation that some had lost their first love. And then he
said, I think it was to the Laodicean church, he said, you've become
lukewarm. And that's us, isn't it, at times? And I say, based upon that, if
anybody here, if you've lost your first love, if you've become
lukewarm, he said, Behold, I stand at the door, and I knock. If
any man hear my voice by the power of the Holy Spirit and
opens the door by faith, I'll come in, and what did he say
he'd do? I'll come in and sup with you,
and he with me." Communion with Christ. Why do this? Not only
as a memorial and a show of faith and communion, but fourthly,
we do it as a show of thanksgiving. Thanksgiving. We honor him for
the great things he's done for us. Thanksgiving. And like I
said before, this is a festival. It's not a funeral, is it? Well,
he's not in the casket. He's living. He's not in the
tomb. He's not in the casket as the
Mexicans have him and the Papists have him on a crucifix. Oh, no,
he's living. We serve a risen Savior. A risen Savior. And this is not
a funeral. It's a festival. That's why we're
drinking wine. Wine was always typical of a
festival, a feast, you see. And the scripture says, a feast
of fat things and wine on the leaves. Good wine, the best wine,
the blood of Christ himself. It's not a fast, it's a feast.
We need to be joyful in this thing. Don't let our countenances
be sad and drawn. He said that. Even when you fast,
don't let your countenances be like the Pharisees. Let our countenances
be joyful. Because he poured out his soul
unto death, therefore we are alive unto God through Jesus
Christ our Lord." Paul says, Rejoice evermore. Rejoice! Finally,
my brethren, he said, Rejoice in the Lord. Because Christ laid
down his life for us, because he shed his precious blood for
us and gave his body to be burned on the altar of God's wrath and
his law against our sins, we're accepted. We're accepted. We're
accepted in the Beloved, and we can come boldly now to the
throne of grace because of this, because of this sacrifice of
Christ. Through his blood, there's remission. There's remission. Sins are gone. A propitiation,
a covering. God can't see our iniquities,
our sins. A covering, an atonement, a cleansing. The blood of Jesus Christ, God's
Son, cleanses us from all our sins. Through his bruised body,
his burnt body, his body in that grave, we have a new body, a
new body, a spiritual body. This is it, the spiritual body,
a holy temple under the Lord, a new man, a new creation in
Christ Jesus. It's kind of like a seed planted
in an old, rotten, decomposing stump, a seed. You go out there and And you
take manure, you take dead, rotten things, dead things, and you
throw them on the ground, mix them up in the soil, and then
you throw a seed in there, and it springs up out of that dead
thing. And that's us. Because of the sacrifice, because
of the death of Jesus Christ himself, the seed of God is planted,
and we rise up to walk in newness of life because of this sacrifice.
God's justice is satisfied and we're justified by the imputed
righteousness of Christ to our account. And he says, in remembrance
of this, with this in mind, with what I've done as a memorial,
as a thanksgiving, as a confession of faith, as communion, This
do. Remembering me. Remembering me. And we say this by partaking
of this table. We say, thank you, Lord. I do remember. I want to remember. Amen.