That was lovely and a great blessing. Thank you, ladies, for that.
Let's go to the book of Matthew this morning, Matthew chapter
26. If you would, take your Bibles and go to Matthew chapter 26. If I were to ask you the reason
or the purpose or the objective of the Lord Jesus Christ entering
into this world, what would your answer be? A multitude of people who would
answer, well, he came to show us a better life. He came to start a new religion. He came to teach us to be good
people, to be giving people. But I'm more interested in a
biblical answer that I hope you have. The reason the Savior entered
into this world was to save sinners. That's what the Scripture says.
This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation that
Christ Jesus came into the world to save people like us, sinners. Paul said, of whom I am chief. The Lord Jesus entered into this
world And his objective as the son of God, as the son of man,
was his sacrificial death by which he would honor God, he
would satisfy divine justice, and he would save all the people
that God in covenant grace entrusted to him. You see, all of the Old
Testament is focused on the cross of our Savior. Everything is
going in that direction. Even there in Genesis chapter
number 3, when the Son of God took animals and killed them,
and then He skinned them, He robed our father and our mother,
Adam and his wife. In order to do that, blood had
to be shed. And as you go all the way through
the Old Testament, here's the focus. The focus is on the blood. Blood of a sacrifice. That is
the blood of the Lamb of God. It's just where everything is
directing our attention in the Old Testament. And if you read
the Old Testament, and I certainly encourage you to do that, but
if you have read it and are reading it and you don't see that's the
focus, that's the purpose. That's the direction that all
of the Old Testament is going, then you're reading the Old Testament
without any real understanding of what the goal of the Old Testament
is. You see, all the scriptures,
they direct our attention, they direct our focus onto that one
who would enter into this world and lay down his life for the
sheep. Isaiah said in Isaiah 53, all
we like sheep have gone astray, we've all turned everyone to
his own way, but the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us
all. What is Isaiah directing the
attention of the readers to? He's directing the attention
of the readers, not only for those back then who heard and
read the word of God, but for us today, he's directing our
attention to something that's going to happen a few hundred
years in the future. That is the cross death of our
Lord Jesus Christ. That's the focus of the Old Testament. We get to Matthew, Mark, Luke,
and John. What's the focus of those four
gospel narratives? That same message set forth in
the Old Testament, the sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ. And
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John spent a good bit of time. In
fact, if you'll go through and study Matthew, Mark, Luke, and
John, you'll find out somewhere between 25 and 40% of all of
the words written in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John have to
do with our Lord's substitutionary sacrifice. This is the direction
that everything is heading to. And we know He laid down His
life and then He had the power and indeed He did take it up
again. He arose again in order for us
to know that we have a living Savior and in order for us to
know that that which He did when He died absolutely satisfied
God. How do we know our sins were
put away? How do we know all the threats
of the law of God concerning condemnation and judgment for
sin and the wages of sin being death? How do we know that the
Lord Jesus Christ settled the issue before God for all the
people that He came in the world to save? We know it because He
arose. And you read the Scriptures,
all three, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, all three
were involved in His resurrection because it pleased the Trinity. It honored the Trinity. The death
of the Lord Jesus Christ satisfied every demand of God. And our
assurance is based upon who He is and what He did upon the cross
of Calvary. and the reason that he did it.
So the focus of the Old Testament is one who's coming. Everything points to the cross
of Christ in the Old Testament, and then Matthew, Mark, Luke,
and John. We read, here's the focus of his coming. He came
to die. His death was not an accidental
death. I know there are a lot of people
who believe in dispensationalism. They love to study men like Cyrus
Schofield and such things. But those men who teach that,
if they're really true to the teachings of C.I. Schofield,
who got his from a Brethren preacher, who got his from a woman who
had a vision, she said, If you believe that, then you'll embrace
this theory that they teach. The death of the Lord Jesus Christ
was an alternative for God, because they teach that He came into
the world to establish a kingdom in Jerusalem. But He was rejected,
and so God implemented another plan. A backup plan. A standby plan. What's that? That his son would die. That's
not a backup plan. That's not a standby plan. Revelation
tells us he's the lamb who was sacrificed, he was slain before
the foundation of the world. This has always been the aim.
And the four Gospels tell us that he who was promised and
purposed and pictured in the Old Testament, he has come, he
died on purpose to save his people from their sins. Then we get
to the Book of Acts. What's the focus of the Book
of Acts? It is the reaction of the world to what happened on
the cross. That's what the Book of Acts
is all about. The reaction of the Jews. Ron was teaching us
this morning in the Bible class the reaction of the Sanhedrin. The reaction then of the Gentiles. These men went forth preaching
Christ crucified, buried, and risen again. And that really
angered the Sadducees who believed in no resurrection. But that's
the focus of the book of Acts. The reaction of people to the
Christ of the cross and the cross of Christ. And then we get to
the epistles, Romans through Revelation. And really, all of
the body of the epistles is all about the results, the results
of the cross of Christ. He's been exalted. He's the King. He's the Lord. He's the one who
rules. Salvation's only in His name.
So this is the focus of all of the Word of God. That is the
death of our Lord Jesus Christ. But let me hasten to say this,
this was His focus. It was not only the focus of
all the Word of God, but this is what He focused upon. When
His disciples, when they acknowledged His deity, and Peter made that
tremendous confession of faith, Thou art the Christ, the Son
of the living God. Everyone was rejoicing, and then
the Savior, in his own mind and according to his own perfect
will, he told them, many horrible things are in store for me. I'm
going to be arrested. I'm going to be beaten. I'm going
to be killed. But on the third day, I shall
be raised again. And Peter pulled him aside. He said, not so, Lord. What is
this death business? Why are you talking about death?
He said, get behind me, Satan. You don't savor the things of
the Father, the things concerning the kingdom of God. Don't you
understand, Peter? And he told all of the rest of
the apostles, this is why I came. Ron read to us there in Luke
chapter 22. And truly the Son of Man came as it was determined. Determined. His death was purposed. Who's the guy? He was from Ohio. His name escapes me right now.
It need not be mentioned anyway. He was over supposedly at Mount
Calvary preaching many years ago. He owned a girdle factory. That's about the only thing I
remember about him and that he's a false preacher. But anyway,
he said, if I'd been here, I'd have put a stop to the whole
thing. That's a man who is ignorant of the gospel of the grace of
God. That's a man who knows nothing about the purpose of the Lord
Jesus Christ coming into this world. He came to die. He came to die. He came to die. Can you remember that? He came
to lay down His life. He came to offer Himself the
perfect sacrifice to the Father to satisfy God's justice. That's why He came. That was
His mission. The angel said, Thou shalt call
His name Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sins.
Well, how is He going to do that? Well, He won't do it by teaching
miracles, though those were important. That established who He was.
That established His identity. That authenticated His message. The miracles did. And it showed
His kindness and His mercy. But He didn't come just to perform
miracles. He came to give His life a ransom
for many. That's what He said. That's what
He said. Here in Matthew 26. Our Master and His disciples
are eating the last, very last Passover meal. You say, Jim,
no, no, no. Jews are still celebrating the
Passover feast even this year. It's already scheduled. They're
having it this year. But the last real Passover feast
is when our Lord Jesus took of it with His disciples in the
upper room. I heard a man one time say, at
this final Passover, he said they had the bread and they had
the wine. He said, you know what's missing?
He said the lamb is missing. Buddy, you're blind. The lamb
is there. The lamb is sitting at the table. The Lamb of God. And there was the bread with
no leavening agent. Leaven is symbolic of sin. And there's the wine, the fruit
of the vine. Christ said, I'm the vine, you're
the branches. He's a vine who's pressed, pressed
by the judgment of God. And out came the golden, pure
elixir. of the gospel of good news, the
wine of our salvation, the bloody death of the Son of God. And we're having the Lord's Supper
this morning. We're going to partake of it.
What is the object of this memorial feast? What is the object of
it? You don't have to take the time
to turn to it, but in 1 Corinthians chapter 11, two times we read
that as the great apostle Paul quoted our Savior, the Savior
said, this do in remembrance of me. That's what this is all about.
We're remembering him. It's the main object, that's
our purpose in having this memorial supper. We focus our attention,
now listen, bear with me. We focus our attention not so
much upon the miracles that he did, and really, in this service,
not so much upon just the words that he spoke, We focus our attention
on Him. This do in remembrance of me. That's what He said. This is
a time to remember our Savior. So it's not about you. Not about
me. Not about the church. It's about
Him. After all, the whole Bible is
about Him. Correct? The whole Bible is about
Him. And the sacrifices in the Old
Testament were about Him. And as I said, they began there
in Genesis chapter 3. And when we get to the death
of our Lord Jesus Christ, that's the end of the sacrifices. Because
God sacrificed. was offered according to God's
eternal purpose. We're here to remember Him. Remember
Him as your trust, as the one you trust in your heart. Remember
Him who is the Lord, your righteousness. Remember Him who is the object
of your gratitude. Remember Him who redeemed you
from the curse of the law. Remember Him who is the Lord
of your conduct. Remember Him who is the Master
of all that you have and all that you do. Remember Him who
is the very joy of your heart. Remember Him who is the hope
of glory. Remember Him who is the perpetual
representative for you in the very presence of God. And remember
Him who is the rewarder of all of your hopes and desires, that
is, all of the hopes and desires of the Lord's people. Remember
Him with heartiness. Remember Him with sincerity.
Remember Him with a humble attitude. Remember Him with a concentration
of your thoughts. Think of Him. Think of Him. The Apostle Paul wrote in Hebrews,
Consider Him who is the High Priest and Apostle of our profession. Consider Him. Always consider
Him. Really. Every time we meet in
this house of worship, it is to remember Him. It is to focus
on Him. To focus on the Lord Jesus Christ
and His bloody death of salvation. Since we're called to this supper,
all of the Lord's people, we may safely conclude that we may
come to this table. We may eat, we may drink. If
we're believers, you say, well, I'm not worthy. Well, you're
not worthy of the least of God's mercies. You want to talk about
your worthiness? You don't have any in yourself.
But your worthiness to take of this supper and your worthiness
to stand before a holy God is Him who sets at the right hand
of the throne of God. He is our worthiness. And we may come to this table
and eat. remembering him, though others
forget him. Perhaps you've been tempted to
think, well, I wish so-and-so was here. I wish she was here. I wish he was here. Wait a minute. Your focus is misdirected. You should be thankful that God
in His eternal purpose put you in your seat to listen to the
very truth of the gospel of His glory. And we may come to this table
and eat even though we feel weak and sinful. Come and dine. of the bread and drink of the
wine. Don't be burdened with regrets. You say, I'm such a sinner. Well,
we're not going to argue about that. We'll agree with you on that.
But the issue, you see, the focus is not on you. The focus is not
on me. I am a sinner. You're a sinner
too. All of you who are watching,
every one of you, you're sinners too. But that's not the focus
this morning. Our focus is upon the Savior
of sinners. This do in remembrance of me. That's what He said. So we take the bread and we'll
take the wine. Now, I know there are people
who think, who believe in what's called transubstantiation. That's just a $5 term to mean
that there are some who believe that when a priest takes the
bread and pronounces some mumbo-jumbo over it and waves his hand, that
it actually becomes the body of our Lord Jesus Christ and
therefore becomes sacred. The bread becomes sacred. And
he does the same thing to the wine, and then the wine becomes
sacred, becomes holy. And they believe that to such
an extent that the leftovers, what to do with the leftovers?
Well now wait a minute, if it's become the body of Christ literally
and the blood of Christ literally, we're not going to pour that
blood down the drain. It cannot go into the sewer,
according to the teaching of many religions. It's to be either buried, the
bread and the wine to be buried, because it's sacred, they say.
The priest has blessed the bread and blessed the wine. It's now
sacred. Burn it and bury it, that's what
they say. When the Savior said, except
you eat my flesh and drink my blood, he's speaking of his flesh
and he's speaking of his blood as being eating and drinking
like we would eat regular bread and drink regular wine. We don't, you see in the Bible,
all times various things are used as representatives or pictures
of our Savior. When I tell you Christ is the
door, enter into salvation by the door, do you think of a door
like that? Well, Christ, He's not really
a door. That's a representation of Christ. We might call it an allegorical
figure. Or when the scripture talks about
Him being Like the brazen serpent. What? You don't envision a brazen
serpent, do you? Our Lord used that as an illustration
of Himself. And you see, this is just...
Here are two pictures. What you'll have pass before
you this morning are two pictures. Bread? It speaks of His body. It speaks of His body. It's a representative of His
body. It doesn't become His body. We're not eating His flesh. It pictures His flesh. It pictures
His human nature, bruised and wounded for our transgressions. Baked in the very oven of God's
wrath. And the wine, that speaks of
His shed blood. Without the shedding of blood,
there's no remission of sins. Well, let me show you one verse.
I'm going to give you five things. Here are five things. The one
verse is verse 28. Matthew 26, 28. He says, For this is my blood
of the New Testament, which is shed for many for the remission
of sins. Easy to remember. Here are five
things. First of all, a person. My. Who is speaking? That's the
person. My. Number two, price. Blood. Number three, purpose
or testament or covenant. This is the blood of the covenant,
the blood of God's eternal purpose. You with me? Person, price, purpose. Fourthly, people, which is shed
for many, shed for people. Not for all people, but for many
people. And then here's the fifth thing.
The word is pardoned. That's the result of the shedding
of blood. Here are five things, they're
very clear. Person, here's the price, here's the purpose, here's
the people, and then here's the pardon. Let me just touch on
these. I'll go back and read verse 26
and 27 too. And as they were eating, Eating the last Passover meal.
It's the last Passover because Christ, our Passover, it's what
Paul said in 1 Corinthians 5, is sacrifice for us. And as they were eating, Jesus
took bread. Now, they've had the roasted
lamb. They're eating the bread. They're
drinking the wine. It's a fellowship feast in remembrance
of that Passover. that was instituted back in Exodus
chapters 12 and 13, by which the Jews were liberated from
Egyptian bondage and captivity. So as they were eating, Jesus
said, remember, Ron read that all 12 apostles were there. I know there's some churches
who disciplined people by saying, perhaps the pastor or one of
the elders or a deacon goes to a certain person and says, you
can't eat. Pastor said, you can't eat the
bread, can't drink the wine because we're disciplining you for sin. Let me tell you something. If
we were going to discipline people in here for sin, I couldn't eat
it either. I couldn't drink either. This
is the Lord's church. It's not for us to sit in on
judgment. Let a man examine himself. What's
the examination? Do I have sin in my life? Well,
you don't even have to ask that question. I'll answer it for
you. The answer is yeah. The examination consists of this. What is the basis, the very foundation
of your salvation? The grace of God through the
bloody sacrifice and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's
my answer. I'm qualified to eat and drink
and you are as well. If you're a believer, here's the person, here's the
price, here's the purpose, here's the people, here's the
part. Let me get into this. I'm going
to have to go quickly now. Number one, the person, my, who's
the speaker? Christ Jesus. And this one person, will always be one person. He's God and man in one. He's God over all, blessed forever. He's divinity. He's the son of
God. It's what the Jews got so angry
with him about. John chapter 10, I and my father
picked up stones to stone him. He said, what are you stoning
me for? Why would you want to kill me? Because you being a
man, you claim to be God. He is God. When He entered into
this world and veiled His deity with human flesh, He didn't stop
being God. God can't stop being God. He's God forever. From everlasting
to everlasting, thou art God. That's what Scripture says. And
many times did he use this expression, I'll be preaching on the Lord
willing Wednesday, I am. That takes in past, present,
future. Takes in, excuse me, past and
present and joins them into the present. He's always in the present
tense. He's the great I am. He's God.
Only God can be that, that way. Great is the mystery of godliness,
and this is without controversy. 1 Timothy 3 says, God, invisible,
eternal, glorious, sovereign, holy, righteous, just, God was
manifest in the flesh. Born in Bethlehem's manger to
a young virgin named Mary with a body created by the Holy Ghost
within her. My, he says, this is my blood. Well, who are you speaking? He's the Savior. And I just about
lost my train of thought, but I'll go back to 12 apostles were
there. Our Lord Jesus knew the heart
of Simon Peter, who would deny him three times. He didn't stop
him from eating and drinking. And he knew perfectly well what
was going to happen, what was already happening in the heart
of Judas, going to betray him. He took it too. And the Lord
served him. The Lord served him. Had to go
back and pick that up, because I lost my train of thought. I
was preaching one time with a black preacher. He and I preached.
We alternated Fridays. Every Friday morning, those who
wanted to come. I worked for United Parcel Service.
And those who wanted to attend came to a Bible study. And he
would, this one brother, and he and I got along great. He
would teach one Friday morning, and I would teach the next Friday
morning. He's preaching one more. Here we all are, the brown group. We've all got our brown uniforms
on, ready to go to work. And he just stopped, and he had
this real puzzled look. And he went, whoo, choo, choo,
choo, choo, choo, choo. He said, the devil done took
that thought from me. Every once in a while, we do
lose our train of thought, but listen. You judge yourself. Am I a true believer in the Lord
Jesus Christ? That's all. You build on any
other foundation? Build on Christ only. He's the
person. He's the God-man. Secondly, here's
the price. This is my blood. That's the
price. He couldn't save any other way.
He had to shed his blood in order to honor God. The wages of sin
is death. Somebody's going to die. I'm
going to tell you something. In your case, in the case of
everybody, it doesn't matter who you are, there's going to
be a death that is related to you in some
fashion. Either the death of the Lord
Jesus Christ, who died for His elect, He purchased the church
with His own blood. That's what Acts 20, 28 says. Husbands, love your wives as
Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for it. The
death of the Son of God or you're going to have to die. That's
true of everybody now. So how do I know He died for
me? You believe Him. That's the only evidence there
is. Well, it's not that you're holier than other people or better
than other people. You're just a sinner who needs
a Savior and you look to Christ. Does that fit you? That fits
me. Here's the price, blood. Here's the purpose. The reason
for all this is because of a testament or a covenant. A covenant of
grace. The names of God's people were
written down in the Lamb's book of life from before the foundation
of the world. Everything in that covenant was
fixed and settled. In fact, you read there in Ephesians
chapter 1, Predestination. Acceptance. Acceptance. And that's mentioned even before
the redemptive work of Christ Jesus. Because you see, we've
always been accepted by God in Christ because we're always seen
by God in Christ. Can you grasp that? Can you get
a hold of that? Accepted in the Beloved. This
is the purpose of God. From old eternity, He ordained
all of this. He ordained His own death. He
was in charge of His own sacrifice. And He was put in charge of you
and your eternal salvation too before the world began. And God
the Father said, I give these people to you. I entrust them
to you. He said, I will save them. I
will redeem them. I will make them righteous. It's
all according to the New Testament. And fourthly, here's the people.
The blood which is shed for many, not everybody. He paid the debt of some people. And they're free of debt. If I owed a debt to, let's say,
a big furniture store here in town, and I couldn't pay it,
but one of you stepped forward and said, I'm going to pay it
for you. Well, you don't pay me. I'm the
one that's in debt. You pay my creditor, the one
I'm in debt to. And when you pay my debt to the
creditor, to the one I owe the money to, and he signs the bill
that I'd run up, or whatever it was, paid in full, and he
tears that copy off and gives you a copy, then I go down there
and he gives me a copy, I can never be held responsible for
that debt ever again. Don't you agree with that? The manager of the store can't
come to me and say, hey, you owe me a debt. I say, hey, wait
a minute, look at this paper here. Paid in full. When Christ Jesus
died on that cross, his resurrection was the stamp of God's approval
paid in full. And everybody he paid the debt
for in full, they're debtless. They're free from debt. You say,
well, didn't he pay that for everybody and everybody's offered
the payment price? I just told you the payment price
isn't offered to the person who owes the debt. It's offered to
God. And I keep saying this, oh, that
God would get a hold of our hearts and impress us upon us. God had to do something for Himself
before He could do something for us. And our Lord Jesus suffered,
bled, and died, burying the sins of His people in His own body
on the tree. And that sacrifice was for God.
And when justice had done all it could do to our substitute,
the Lord Jesus said, it is finished. It's accomplished. What's accomplished?
Everything purposed in the covenant of grace. Redemption is finished. Atonement is made. Reconciliation
has been accomplished. And then here's the fifth thing.
What did that death, what did it do for us? Pardoned our sins. Our debts are remitted. They're
removed. Paid in full. By the blood of
the Lord Jesus Christ. And so this morning, for believers,
these men are going to serve you the bread It's just a picture. It's an emblem of our Lord's
body. And then as He did, I'll pray
and then we'll eat together. And then they'll pass you the
wine. And we use wine because all the
impurities have been fermented out of it. It's Jewish Passover
wine, right? Kosher for Jewish Passover. And
we honor our Lord by taking the wine. And we do it in remembrance
of His blood. That blood of the New Testament. This is for the children of God.
If you're a believer, say, well, I'm not a very strong believer.
Let me tell you something. It doesn't matter the depth of
your faith or how much faith you've got. Is it faith in the
right person? Believe on Christ. Then this
is for you.