I want to just take a few moments
tonight from this passage and several others in Matthew 26
here to preach to you concerning the importance of the Lord's
table. This is an ordinance that Christ
instituted himself. It's a command of the Lord that
he gave unto his disciples and in essence gave unto the church
through his disciples. on this very solemn night, this
important night, in which he was about to go to his suffering
unto death. And he gave it, as we read here
in Matthew chapter 26, to replace the Old Testament feast of Passover,
that seven-day feast, the seven days which began with a Sabbath,
the seven-day feast of unleavened bread. The Passover you remember
in the Old Covenant. mark the first day of the seven-day
Feast of Unleavened Bread. And if you would turn back with
me to Exodus chapter 12, just look at that just for a moment.
You'll see some of the significant points of this Passover Feast
that really teach us concerning what the Lord is teaching the
disciples and us in the institution of the Lord's Table. In Exodus
chapter 12, look first at verse 16. Now, you know how the Passover
came about. The children of Israel were in
bondage in Egypt. Pharaoh would not let them go.
The Lord sent plague after plague. There were ten plagues altogether,
and the last plague was the plague of the death of the firstborn
in Egypt. Every firstborn male in Egypt
was going to be slain by God, under the justice of God, except
those who put the blood over their doorposts, the blood of
a lamb, a lamb without spot and without blemish, a lamb of the
first year. You know all those requirements
that are laid down in Exodus chapter 12. Such a perfect picture
of Christ, the Lamb of God. You remember, it says there in
verse 5 of Exodus 12, your lamb shall be without blemish, a male
of the first year, you shall take it from the sheep or from
the goats. You see, that's a picture of
Christ who, in his humanity, was taken out of the seed of
David according to the flesh, taken from the sheep, as his
humanity speaks of, without blemish, without spot. And then it says
in verse 6, You shall keep it up until the fourteenth day of
the same month, and the whole assembly of the congregation
of Israel shall kill it in the evening. And they shall take
of the blood, and strike it on the two side posts of the upper
door post of the houses, wherein they shall eat it." The blood
had to be on the door. They had to apply that blood on the door.
And you remember the Lord said in verse 11, look at that, He
says, and thus shall you eat it. It's a picture of faith in
Christ. With your loins girded, you're
not at home yet. That's what He's saying, your
loins girded, ready to move. You're not at home yet. Egypt's
not your home. This world is not our home. He says, your shoes
on your feet, ready to travel, your staff in your hand, and
you shall eat it in haste. And look here, he says, it is
the Lord's Passover. Now, we call this the Lord's
Supper. It's not our supper. This is
the Lord's Supper that we're taking tonight. And we need to
keep that in mind. It's not a feast that we prepare.
It's not a feast that we instituted. It's not an ordinance of man.
It's not a custom or tradition. It's the Lord's Passover. Well,
this is the Lord's table. This is the Lord's supper. And
he says in verse 12, For I will pass through the land of Egypt
this night, and will smite all the firstborn in the land of
Egypt, both man and beast. And against all the gods of Egypt
I will execute judgment. I am the Lord. That means he's
right in doing what he's doing. There's no unfairness here. There
was no unjustness here. And he says in verse 13, and
the blood shall be to you for a token upon the houses where
you are. This blood was a type. This animal blood was a symbol.
There was no power in animal blood to forgive sin or to put
away sin. But it was a token. It was a
type, a picture. We're going to be drinking the
cup tonight, the wine. That's a token. That's a symbol.
There's no spiritual power in that wine or no spiritual power
in that bread that we're going to partake of. But it's a symbol,
and that's what he's saying about the blood of animals under the
Passover. It was a token upon the houses which you are. And
when I see the blood, he says, I will pass over you and the
plague shall not be upon you to destroy you when I smite the
land of Egypt. Now, if you look back over at
verse 16 of Exodus 12, there's something very significant about
this feast. Remember what I said, the Passover
now, the Passover that they kept in Israel, every year marked
the first day of the seven-day Feast of Unleavened Bread. And
it began here in verse 16, it says, And in the first day there
shall be a holy convocation. Now that means a solemn gathering. So it's like us, when we meet
together in this congregation, this is a holy convocation. That
means that we're here for a purpose. It doesn't mean that we're inherently
holy. It doesn't mean there's anything
holy about this building or morally perfect. The word holy there
means to be separated. It means that we're here to do
one thing. We're separated unto the worship of God. That's our
purpose tonight. We're here to worship God in
Christ. And it's a holy convocation. It's a separated, solemn gathering
of God's people together for one purpose. We're not here to
entertain. We're not here to tell jokes.
We're here to worship God through Christ in the spirit of truth. And so he says, the holy convocation,
and in the seventh day, now listen to this, there shall be a holy
convocation unto you. No manner of work shall be done
in them save that which every man must eat that only may be
done of you. This feast started with a Sabbath. No manner of work shall be done.
And that is significant because it shows you that this holy convocation,
this solemn gathering of people to act upon what God commanded
them, begins with the Sabbath. Well, our holy convocation tonight,
as we are met together to to take the Lord's Supper also begins
with the Sabbath. But our Sabbath is not a day.
Our Sabbath is a person. Our Sabbath is resting in Christ. Now, that's one thing that's
significant about who's to take the Lord's Supper. We'll see
that in just a moment. Who's supposed to take this?
All who are resting in Christ and his finished work for all
the salvation. All who are submitted to what
Christ himself accomplished at Calvary to put away our sins
by his blood and to justify us as God the Father justified us
in him were redeemed. We'll see that in just a moment.
But here's the point now. This was not an option for Israel.
He didn't say, now you do this if you feel like it. He didn't
say, you do this if things are going well. He didn't say, you
do this if you've had a good week and you feel holier today
than you did last week. No, he says, you do this. This
is a command of God. Now, that's the way the Lord's
Supper was instituted by our Lord over in Matthew 26. It was
a commandment. Why is this important? Somebody
asked one time, said, well, why do we have to do that? Well,
because God said so. Now, that ought to end all discussion.
Remember, I told you about seeing the sign outside of a religious
organization that said, it went like this, that God said it,
I believe it, that settles it. That is wrong, wrong, wrong.
It's not God said it, I believe it, that settles it. It's God
said it, that settles it. That's what it should read. You
know, people say, well, if I believed in election. I wouldn't preach
the gospel. Well, if you believe the election
in the Bible, you would. Because God said to go preach
and God saves his people by the preaching of the gospel. It pleased
the Lord by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. So this is a command of Christ
to his disciples. It's not an option. So that does
not mean that. And listen, that doesn't mean
that you should do it even if you don't want to do it. Here's
the thing about it. If you're one of his, he'll give
you the desire to know it by his Spirit. He'll put that desire
in you. And that's the way he works.
Now, what is the purpose of it? Well, the purpose of it is to
remember. And that's the key. This is a
memorial ordinance. This is not salvation. This is
to remember. Salvation accomplished by Christ. This is not what some call, it
doesn't have any saving power in it. And the saving power is
in Christ. And what we're doing in the Lord's
Supper is we're meeting in remembrance of him. He said it in several
places, this do, in remembrance of me. Over in the book of 1
Corinthians chapter 11, which is a passage that I read while
we're taking the supper because Paul gives the significance of
it and the meaning of it here. And he said twice there, when
you eat of this bread, this do in remembrance of me. When you
take of this cup, this do in remembrance of me. And then he
says in verse 26 of 1 Corinthians 11, he says, for as often as
you eat this bread and drink this cup, you do show the Lord's
death till he comes. You're commemorating, you're
memorializing, you're reestablishing, reaffirming your faith in the
Lord and his death until he comes. It's a memorial ordinance. It's
not a sacrament. Some call it a sacrament. A sacrament
means that it has some kind of saving power. There's no saving
power in this ordinance. There's no saving power in the
bread. There's no saving power in the wine. The saving power
all belongs to Christ. Now look at 1 Corinthians chapter
15. Now, why do we need to be continually reminded of this?
Why do we need an ordinance of remembrance? I'll tell you why. And you know it well. It's because
we're sinners. Isn't that right? We need reminded
all the time. Paul wrote about this in 1 Corinthians
15. Look at verse 1. He says, Moreover, brethren,
I declare unto you the gospel, which I preached unto you, which
also you have received, and wherein you stand, by which also you
are saved, if you keep in memory, or hold fast, what I preached
unto you, unless you believe in vain." That's one of those
powerful if-statements of the scripture which men take and
misuse and abuse to make salvation conditioned upon them. But that's
not what it's teaching at all. He's just simply saying that
if you've ever truly believed the gospel, that will be evidenced
by your keeping this in memory and holding fast to Christ. You'll
hold fast to him. And that's why we need to be
reminded. Do we have a tendency to forget? Yes, we do. And that's
why the elements of the Lord's Supper are so important, because
of this memorial service. What are we remembering? Well,
Christ told his disciples, he said, you take this bread. And
he gave thanks for it. And he said, take, eat, this
is my body. Now, back over in the Passover,
they were to use unleavened bread because there was no leaven to
enter even into the house during that feast. Why was that? Because leaven was a type or
a picture or a symbol of sin. You know what leaven is, it's
that yeast that they put in dough that you put just a little bit
in and it spreads all throughout the lump and that lump rises
and gets puffed up. You see, that's what sin does
to the human nature. Puffs us up. Makes us self-righteous. A little bit just spreads all
the way through. That's the way it is. Those evil desires, those self-righteous
desires, leaven is a type of sin. And it would not properly
picture and typify Our Savior, who had no leaven. He was totally
perfect in every way, body, soul, and spirit. And in every way
that unleavened bread pictures Him. Some say, well, it's not
just put on Him, but put in Him, polluted His human nature. Not
so. That's not what the Scriptures
teach. That's not what you heard from the beginning. And if in
any way He became polluted with our sin in either nature, Either
his nature as God or his nature as man, he would have been disqualified
from being our Savior. That could not be. It had to
be unleavened bread. He said, this is my body which
is broken for you. Even while his body was being
broken, it took unleavened bread to symbolize that, no sin in
him. The perfect God-man offered himself
up in our place to take our punishment under the law and to drink damnation
dry. That's again why we use wine.
Turn to 1 Peter 1. We use wine because it symbolizes
properly his precious blood. Peter wrote in 1 Peter 1, verse
18, this is our redemption now. He
says, For as much as you know that you were not redeemed with
corruptible things. Now, whatever we were redeemed
with, I'm going to tell you something about it. It's incorruptible. It cannot be contaminated and
corrupted. How do you know that? For as
much as you know, and that's that same word that I was talking
about this morning, you know absolutely, you've been convinced
of this, that you were not redeemed with corruptible things. And
he goes on to mention some of those corruptible things. Silver
and gold from your vain conversation received by tradition from your
fathers, but you were redeemed with the precious blood of Christ. as of a lamb without blemish
and without spot." Now, can it be any clearer? You see, that
wine represents his sinless blood. He who is worthy, worthy is the
lamb that was slain. That's why these elements are
important. Look back at Matthew 26. Now, who is worthy to take
the Lord's Supper? Probably, if you came up like
I did in religion, you wrestled with that question quite a bit.
Who is worthy? You were probably taught something
to the effect that, well, before you take the Lord's Supper,
you pretty much have had to have been toeing the line. Not veering
to the left or the right, and if you got caught up in your
own sin that particular week or the day before or something
and you weren't worthy to take it until you confessed it and
repented and all of that, you probably learned something again.
In other words, you had to make yourself worthy. But my friend,
let me tell you something right now. If you're coming here tonight
and you believe that you have made yourself worthy to take
this supper by your words. Let me give you some good advice.
Don't take it. Don't take it. Just let it pass
you by. Now, you do what you want. I
leave it to your conscience. I'm going to show you that in
just a moment. I'm not going to jump off the pulpit and stop
you or anything like that. But I'm just telling you, that's
not the worthiness of which this supper speaks. Now, who is worthy
to take the Lord's Supper? where it is only those who have
been made worthy by Christ, by the grace of God, made righteous
in him. We are not worthy in ourselves.
Did you notice back here in Matthew 26 that after our Lord instituted
this supper, he made this statement. He says in verse 31, then said,
Jesus unto them, all ye shall be offended because of me this
night. Now, you notice there, I know that when Peter denied
the Lord three times, he was afraid for his life. We know
that. Any of us would be. If somebody
came and threatened our lives, we'd be afraid for our lives.
That's human. That's human weakness. But he says this, he says, All
ye, not just Peter, but all the disciples shall be offended because
of me. And he says, for it is written,
I will smite the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock shall
be scattered abroad." Remember, Peter spoke up. He said, I won't
be offended. He said, though I be killed,
I won't deny it. Of course, we know that Peter
was speaking out of the human flesh there. That was not by
the Spirit of God. He was boasting. I'm sure he
was sincere about it, but he just didn't know it all. He didn't
know his own frailness, did he? But the Lord showed him later.
And you remember when he heard that cock crow three times, he
wept bitterly. He wept bitterly. But then it
says there in verse 35, after Peter said unto him, Though I
should die with thee, yet will I not deny thee, likewise also
said all the disciples. The other disciples said the
same thing. And yet when the Lord was arrested, when he went
through that suffering, they all scattered. You see, what's
that teaching us? It's teaching us what the Bible's
taught all the way through, that Christ Jesus came into the world
to save what? Sinners. Weak, pitiful, wretched,
afraid, cowardly sinners. How could they be worthy in themselves? They could not be, and we could
not be. Their worthiness was in the one who was going to the
cross. to die for their sins, to put
them away, and to establish righteousness. Let me give you these requirements
of the Lord's Supper. There are four particular requirements
here. The first one, look at Matthew
26 and verse 28. The first requirement for taking
the Lord's Supper is that you have to be redeemed by the blood
of Christ. You have to be redeemed. Look
at verse 28, he says, for this is the blood of the New Testament
which is shed for the many. Not all without exception. This
is not universal redemption here. His blood was shed for his sheep.
He said, I laid down my life for the sheep. His blood was
shed for a particular people, and it resulted in the remission
of sins." That means the putting away of sins, the forgiveness
of sins. His death means forgiveness,
not the possibility of forgiveness. But when he died, he put away
their sins. Behold the Lamb of God which
beareth away the sins of the world. That's what John the Baptist
said. This is redemption. This is a requirement. Have you
been redeemed by the Lord? Well, how do you know? Well,
here's the second requirement. to be regenerated by the Spirit,
to be born again by the Spirit. Those who have seen their redemption
in Christ. Those who have seen that they
must rest in Him who is the Lamb of God. He said this in his giving
of the Lord's Supper. He said, This do in remembrance
of me. Now, you've heard preachers say
this before. You can't remember what you didn't
know no more than you can return from where you haven't been.
So if you're going to do it in remembrance of him, you have
to have known him. You have to have seen his glory.
You have to have seen his redemptive work in the face of Jesus Christ. You have to have been born again
by the Spirit. Have you seen the glory of the
Lord? Have you seen the power of his blood to put away all
sin? Have you seen how God can be
just and justify the ungodly? Not based upon what you do for
God, but based upon what He did for you at the cross. And here is the third requirement.
Repentance. Look at 1 Corinthians chapter
5. Now, as far as I can tell, in
my reading of the Scripture, people talk about, well, who
is to be excluded from the Lord's table? And many of you well know
that there are denominations who sort of build a church on
that, you know, who they're going to exclude. They fence the table. Who are we going to exclude and
all of that? Well, as far as I can tell from my reading of
the Scripture, this is the only time anybody was ever excluded
from the Lord's table by the church now. I'm talking about
one who professes to believe Christ. This is an ordinance
for believers. We've already said that. The
redeemed of the Lord, the regenerated. That's the requirement. You must
believe in him. You must do this in remembrance
of him. But those who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ must
have a repentant attitude, a penitent attitude towards sin. And he
says here, look at 1 Corinthians 5, look at verse 1, he says,
it's reported commonly that there is fornication. That's sexual
immorality. among you, and such fornication
as is not so much as named among the Gentiles, that one should
have his father's wife." Incest is what he's talking about. And
he says, and you're puffed up. That means you're proud. You're
arrogant. And you've not rather mourned.
You haven't mourned over this. This hasn't brought sorrow to
your heart. You see, that's what sin ought
to do. It ought to bring sorrow. And he says that he that hath
done this deed might be taken away from among you. That means
excluded. Now what's happening here? This
man was bringing public scandal upon the church. He did not have
a repentant attitude. And he says in verse 3, For I
verily as absent in the body, but present in spirit, have judged
already as though I were present concerning him that hath so done
this deed. This thing got back to Paul.
You talk about public scandal. Now listen to me. Now we're all
sinners. We're all just as much in need of God's grace in Christ
as the worst. You see, that's not the issue
here. The issue here is bringing public scandal upon the church
throughout the community. And he says, In the name of our
Lord Jesus Christ, when you are gathered together, and my spirit
with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, to deliver such and one
unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit
may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. Turn him over to
the flesh, that's what he's saying, that he may be buffeted, that
he may be brought to repentance. That's the goal. That's not just
saying, well, now it's just time to go on to hell. That's not
what that means at all. It means it's delivering him
to the flesh, over to the ways, put him out there in the hinterlands
where he has no means of worship, no means of hearing the Word,
and pray that he'll be brought to repentance. And he goes on
in verse 6. Look, he says, your glorying
is not good. Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the
whole lump? That is, to allow such public scandal to go on.
He says, Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be
a new lump, for ye are unleavened. That's our holiness in Christ.
For even Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us. Therefore
let us keep the feast. I believe he's talking about
the Lord's Supper there. Not with old leaven. Neither
with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened
bread of sincerity and truth." What's he talking about? He's
talking about you must have a repentant attitude towards sin. Not an
arrogant, puffed-up one. And those that bring public scandal
upon the Church by their bad behavior, by their open arrogance
in the face of it, they're to be excluded. They're to be excluded. Now, that's why repentance is
necessary. It comes with faith. This is
the only time in Scripture where the matter of judgment by the
local church and when public scandal is brought upon the church,
open and known by all, in all other instances now, in all other
instances, here's the fourth requirement and here's what it
is. It's a matter of self-examination. It's not a matter of me examining
you and you examining me. Look over at 1 Corinthians chapter
11. It's a matter of self-examination.
Look at verse 28. You see, Paul didn't say that.
Now, you all start a disciplinary committee or a church police
force or something like that and you go around trying to find
things. No, sir. No, sir. Here's the requirement. Self-examination. Verse 28. But let a man examine
himself, and so let him eat of that bread and drink of that
cup. I'm to examine myself, do I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ? Is he my hope? Do I have a repentant
attitude towards sin? Now, he says, let a man examine
himself, and so let him eat of that bread and drink of that
cup. In another place, he says, examine yourselves to see whether
you're in the faith. Are you looking to Christ? That's
what that's talking about. It's not a self-examination that
says, now, I've got to see, have I come up to muster this week?
Have I met the requirements? No, it's examine yourself to
see, is my hope built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness? Do I trust the sweetest frame,
or do I wholly lean on Jesus' faith? Am I standing on Christ,
the solid rock? And all other ground is sinking,
saying, is that my hope? Is he my hope? Now, if he's your
hope, if he's your wisdom, your righteousness, your holiness,
your redemption, my friend, partake of the Lord's Supper. This do
in remembrance of him. Our Heavenly Father, we thank
you for the blessings of your death on the cross, your bear
on your resurrection. your precious blood shed for
our sins, your righteousness by which we stand before God
accepted. We pray that you will make it
real to our minds and our hearts. Guide us and direct us, for it
is in His name we pray. Amen.