And I'll start reading at verse
12, Mark 14, verse 12. And the first day of unleavened
bread, when they killed the Passover, his disciples said unto him,
Where wilt thou that we go, and prepare that thou mayest eat
the Passover? And he sent forth two of his
disciples, saith unto them, Go ye into the city, and there shall
meet you a man bearing a pitcher of water. Follow him, and wheresoever
he shall go in, say ye to the good men of the house, the master
saith, where is the guest chamber where I shall eat the Passover
with my disciples? And he will show you a large
upper room furnished and prepared. There make ready for us. And
his disciples went forth and came into the city, and found
as he had said unto them, and they made ready the Passover.
And in the evening he cometh with the twelve, and as they
sat and did eat, Jesus said, one of you which eateth with
me shall betray me. And they began to be sorrowful.
I tell you, if Christ had come in here and told us tonight one
of us is gonna betray him, wouldn't you be sorrowful? Sad and sorrowful,
huh? And they all began to say unto
him one by one. Every one of them asked him,
Lord, is it I? Not one of them, not one of them said, I wouldn't
do it. They all said, is it I? Is it I? Is it I? They all said it. And another
said, is it I? And he answered and said unto
them, it is one of the twelve that dippeth with me in the dish.
The son of man indeed goes as it is written of him, but woe
to the man by whom the son of man is betrayed. It were good
for that man that he had never been born, and as they did eat,
Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and break it, and gave it
to them, and said, take eat, this is my body. And he took
the cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, and
they all drank of it. And he said unto them, this is
my blood of the New Testament, which is shed for many. The first
Passover was done in Egypt. And you remember that they had
seven-day feast. It was called unleavened bread.
And the first thing they did, they put all the leaven out of
the house. Leaven, of course, would be what we would call bacon
powder, bacon soda, whatever. Makes things a little leaven,
leaves the whole lump. So they put all the leaven out. They ate unleavened bread for
seven days. But they put up the lamb and
they kept that lamb up for 14 days to examine that lamb, that
there'd be no spot and no blemish. And then on the seventh night,
seventh day in the evening, they would slay that lamb, they'd
roast it with fire, have bitter herbs with it, and then they
would eat it. And when they'd done that, that
meant that they was ready to come out of Egypt. And so our
Lord Jesus Christ done this and now it's the last day of the
feast. In Matthew it says the first day of the feast, the first
day they started eating the unleavened bread. And I wanna talk about
a few things here tonight. I've got five things, five things
that I think would be a blessing to us as we look at them in relation
to our Lord Jesus Christ. We have some wine here and we
have some bread here. And this is not a ritual. This
is not a ritual. It's not a ritual. It's not a
ceremony. It's not a ceremony. It's not
that. These are just emblems of our
Lord Jesus Christ. But let me give you five blessed
truths that come out of our Lord's broken body and shed blood. Of
our Lord Jesus Christ, death on the cross, the shedding of
his blood for his elect people. The first blessing I think we
need to understand is the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ. He
had to have a body in which to suffer. And God said in Hebrews,
He said, Thou hast prepared me a body. And how did He prepare
our Lord's body? He was the eternal Son of God,
infinite and eternal, and yet God made him go through the womb
of a woman, and he was made of a woman, and he come out of that
woman's womb, and then he was as much eternal when he was an
infant as he was when he was in eternity. And so you've got
to think about this, when our Lord Jesus Christ He had to have
a body to come in here in order for it to be bruised, in order
for it to be broken, in order for it to be beaten, in order
for it to suffer, in order for it to die, to die. And I tell you what, God prepared
him a body. He is born an infant, yet he
is infinite. He is unending, immeasurable,
He was from eternity and yet he was made of a woman. Oh my. And that's why I said a body.
He said this is my body. This is my body that's broken
for you. When we get that body, God prepared
it for him. God gave it to him. God made
him a body. And it had nothing to do with
man. That's why he come to the womb
of a woman. God made him a body. Had to have
a body. Had to have a body. When our
Lord ascended back to glory, he had a body. And he told Mary,
he said, touch me not. Don't touch me, Mary. I'm not
here to send you to my father and your father and my God and
your God. And here's a body. Here is a body. And then the
second thing is atonement. The atonement. You know on the
day of atonement, Israel, the high priest did all the work.
Israel never do anything. And what atonement means is that
you're reconciled from your enemies of God and you're reconciled
through a sacrifice. So the atonement, they had this
atonement and what they would do was they'd offer a goat They'd
offer a lamb, and they would offer, and the high priest would
go in, and he'd take the blood. And nobody had done any work
that day. Only the priest is the only one
who'd done anything. He had to offer the sacrifice,
he had to take the blood behind the veil, and then God said,
that makes atonement for your souls. And so our Lord Jesus
Christ, here we have bread and we have wine. We have a broken
bread and a poured out wine. And what this means is just like
that high priest took the blood behind the veil, our Lord Jesus
Christ took his blood behind the veil in glory and obtained
eternal redemption for us. Without the shedding of blood,
there is no remission of sins. And when you talk about an atonement,
what part did we have? Our high priest didn't know. He was the one that shed the
blood. He was the one that made the
offering. He was the one who went behind the veil. He was
the one who went into the presence of God. He was the one who made
reconciliation. He did it all, all of him we
owe. And all we do is sit here and
enjoy his blessed presence. That's all we do. And a gospel,
let me tell you something, a gospel without blood is no gospel at
all. They like to make music and make
songs and stuff now. You know, they take out a lot
of things, a lot of things. And I'll tell you what, a bloodless
religion, a gospel without the blood of Christ is no gospel
whatsoever. And he said in Leviticus 17,
he says, the life of the flesh is in the blood. And he said,
and I give the blood upon the altar to make an atonement for
your sin. God said, the life of the flesh
is in the blood. You know, when a fellow's heart
stops beating, there ain't no more blood that's flowing. It's
there no more. And you know, My sweet wife,
she has to have blood drawn, and she has it tested. And I do every year. They give
me a big old readout, and they tell everything about me from
my blood. They can tell if I've got sugar.
They can tell if I've got high blood. They can tell all kinds
of things about you by the blood. They can find out if you've got
an infection by the blood. Well, we had a horrible, horrible
disease called sin. And you know the thing that would
cure it? The blood of Christ. The blood. And you know, the
blood cleanses us from all sin. And he said, he said this, that
my body is broken for you. Take this wine as I gave thanks.
This is the New Testament. What? In my blood. In my blood. Oh, look with me
over here in Romans chapter 5. Look in Romans chapter 5 with
me. Let's look at something that
started verse 8. Look what he said here. But God commendeth
His love toward us. He said, I want you to understand
what I've done for you. God commendeth His love toward
us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. He said, boy, that's really something. He said, oh, that's something.
But then look what he said, much more. I got a whole lot more
to tell you about it. Being now justified by that blood
where Christ died for us, we shall be saved from the wrath
of God through Him. For if, when we were enemies,
and we were, we were enemies in our mind by wicked word. For
if we were, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by
the death of his son. And again, he said, much more
than being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. If his death justified us, if
his death commended God's love toward and justified us. And
now look what he said, and not only that, Do we also joy in
God through our Lord Jesus Christ by whom now we have received
the atonement. What a blessing to know that
Christ did it all. He don't want nothing from us
now but our worship and our praise and our thanksgiving. That's
all he wants from us. And then I want to talk thirdly.
Here's the third thing about, about the, you know, first of
all, the incarnation. He had to have a body. Our Lord
came. He had to come into this world.
He had to come and he had to grow up. He had to be bold. He had to be, he had to be a
man like us, sin accepted. Or he couldn't have died, he
couldn't have suffered. And then I tell you, then he
made an atonement. He is himself is our atonement.
And then I wanna talk about the blessedness of his effectual
grace. His effectual grace. He gave him bread to eat. And
he gave him wine to drink. And he said, this is my body,
which is broken for you. This is my blood, which is shed
for you. Now, let me tell you something. Those men could not
save themselves. It took the death of Christ.
It took the blood of Christ. And he was the one who did it.
He gave it to them. He gave thanks for it. And he
blessed God for his broken body and his shed blood before any
body was ever broken and his blood was ever shed. And I tell
you what, those fellas could not do anything. Christ gave
it to them. And they took it and received
it. You know, I tell you, Israel
When they waited, the night that they, you know, they had that
seven-day feast, unleavened bread for seven days, killed that lamb
on the seventh night, and they killed that black lamb on the
seventh evening, and they ate that thing with their clothes
on, ready to walk out of there the next morning. And beloved,
because of the Passover, because of the blood and the death of
that lamb, Israel was brought out of Egypt. And because of
the broken body and shed blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, we're
leaving this world one of these days, and we've already been
dressed. We already have shoes on our
feet. We got everything we need to
travel. We got the gospel of peace on
our feet. We got a robe of righteousness
on us? All we're waiting for is to say,
God, it's time to go out. Time to go out. And that's the
thing that a man... Oh, listen. One thing God teaches
us, without a shadow of a doubt, that we cannot save ourselves
or make ourselves savable in any way. God never looked to
us for anything before, never looks for us anything today,
and he won't look anything for you. If you were born an infant,
and you live till you're 110 years old, and if Christ died
for you, he'll never look to you for anything. He only looks
to his son for everything. Huh? Oh, our Lord did not come
here to make men savable, but he came here to actually save
them. Huh? Oh my, broken bread for you,
blood shed for you. And it's in the day of his power
that we're made willing. You know, when our Lord told
him, he said, you know, I've got to go and be delivered up.
And Peter told him, he said, Lord, he said, I'll tell you
what, everybody else may deny you. Everybody else may flee
from you. But I'll go to prison with you,
and I'll even go to death with you. But you know what our Lord
said? This was because of his broken
body and shed blood. He said, you know what? Simon
Peter, before the rooster crows in the morning, you're going
to deny me three times. But you know what he said? He
said, I prayed for you. I prayed for you. You know, my
body, I just told you, my body is broken for you. My blood was
shed for you. And he said, Peter, I tell you,
you know, Satan wants to sift you. And he's going to do a pretty
good job of it. But you know the only reason
that you're going to make it, the only reason you're going
to be saved, the only reason you're going to see me on the
other side of the cross after my resurrection, is because I
prayed for you. That's the only thing that keeps
us going every day. Him up there praying for us.
Ain't that a blessing? Here we sit tonight, some of
us have trouble, some of us have worries, some of us have heartache.
Fran's in the hospital, she's not feeling well, and Bill's
not, you know, he's worried about her. Everybody's got these things. But I'll tell you one thing,
Christ Himself is praying for them right now. Christ calls
out their name before the Father. I'd rather have, you know, we
pray for him, and we give thanks for him, and we plead God's name
for him, Christ's name for him, but I tell you what, if we'll
take him to the Lord, then the Lord will also, he'll call on him, he'll, Father,
Father, my child's sick. That's what, you know, Mary and
Martha, they sent word to the Lord Jesus Christ when Lazarus
got sick, And they sent word to him, said, Lord, listen to
what he said. That's what they said to him.
Mary Martha sent word to him, said, Lord, he whom thou lovest
is sick. He whom thou lovest is sick. You think God's changed his way
now? He whom thou lovest is sick.
You think he's still not the same God, the same Christ? He
whom thou lovest, the person you love, Lord, they're sick. They're sick. And I tell you
what, you tell the Lord, say, Lord, you love them people. They're
sick. They're sick. They're yours.
They're sick. Oh, my. And I tell you, you know
what? His grace is effectual. It's effectual. It gets the job
done. It saved us, didn't it? That
broken body and shed blood. made atonement for us, made God's
grace effectual for us, but if He's crucified for you and shed
His blood for you, you'll be saved eternally. And you know
how you get it? He gives it to you. He gives
it to you. And let me give you the fourth
thing here real quick. We also see the church here.
We see the church. You know, When we talk about
the church, we're talking about the Lord's people. Not talking
about a building. We're talking about God's elect,
God's people, people whom Christ died for. And the church is called
Christ's body. We're members of His body. You
know, we're all members in particular. But He's the head of the body.
And we're the Lord's body. He said, we're bone of His bone
and flesh of His flesh. And the Scriptures tells us that
Christ, that we're members in particular. You know, somebody
may be the hand, somebody may be the foot, somebody may be
the law, but you know, if everybody was an ear, where was the hearing?
If everybody's an eye, where's the seeing? So you know, everybody,
in the body of Christ, we're all in the body of Christ. We're
members in particular. And the church, and when we look
at this, he said, Paul told Ephesians when he left, he says, Feed the
church of God which he hath purchased, with what? His own blood. People talk, you know, I hear
preachers say, my church, my church. You know, I'll tell you
something, I don't have a church. I don't have a church. I pastor
a church, but I don't have a church. The church belongs to Christ
and I'm just a member of it. You know, preachers say, listen,
my church does this much. Listen, I don't have a church.
It's the Lord's church. He just let me be a member of
it and let me feed the church of God, which He purchased with
His own blood. Oh my. And the scriptures tells
us we're one, one with Him. Born with him. We're his body,
he's the head. And the scriptures tells us in
Colossians 3, 3, you are dead and your life is hid with Christ
in God. We're hid in Christ. And the
only ones hid there is the ones that got put in Christ. I quote
this all the time, but let's look at it. First Corinthians
chapter one and verse 30. I quote this all the time, but
let's look at it tonight. Let's just look at it. What Christ
is. What Christ is to us. We sang this, you know. All our
blessings are in Him. But look what it says here. In
verse 30. But of Him. Of who? Of God. First Corinthians 1.30. but of
him are ye in Christ Jesus. Now, somebody had to put us in
Christ Jesus. Somebody had to do it. God put
us in Christ. And then God made Christ under
us. Wisdom. What in the world does
that mean? That means that we have some spiritual understanding
that He has made wisdom unto us. We would not have any sense,
no spiritual sense, no spiritual wisdom, no understanding of the
Scriptures or the Bible or nothing, had not been Christ made wisdom
unto us. When we read the Bible, when
we read the Scriptures and we learn the Gospel, we see, oh,
He's our wisdom. He taught us all these things.
He's gonna keep on teaching us. He is our wisdom. Then look what
else, and He's our righteousness. God made Him our righteousness.
Now, you know, people talk about imputed righteousness and part
righteousness. I tell you, all I ever see in the Bible is Christ
is our righteousness. You call Him whatever you want
to, but they said it belongs to Him, and He gave it to us. God said, My Son is righteous,
and now He's your righteousness. He's yours. Look what he says
now. And he made us a man under sanctification. That word sanctification can
be translated holy, perfect, he has perfected forever, then
that he has sanctified. And He's our sanctification.
We don't, you know, people try to be sanctified. They want to
be sanctified. Listen, the moment God made, put us in Christ and
made Christ as wisdom, righteousness, He also made us sanctified, holy
and righteous and complete in Him at the same time. Huh? And look what else He says now.
and our redemption. Now let me tell you what this
means here in redemption. This has to do with our body
at the last days. He bought our bodies. He bought
our body. He is our redemption. So we're
guaranteed that redemption tells us since he bought our body that
he'll take us to glory when we leave this world. He is our redemption. That means something that's going
to be in the future for us later. And this is why it happened this
way. This is why it happened this
way. That according as it is written, if you're gonna glory
in anything, you're gonna boast in anything, let him glory only
in the Lord. Because he's everything. He's
our all and end all. All our blessings are in him.
All spiritual blessings are in him. And you know, tell you something
about his church. And you know, those of you that's
a member of his church, this what we call the mystical body
of Christ. And he got a church all over
the world. But here, there's a spirit of just men made perfect
already in glory. But here's the thing about the
church, that the Lord Jesus Christ, we all have one Lord, All the
people in the body of Christ have one Lord, one faith, one
baptism, one God, and Father of all. And we all have the same
salvation, saved exactly the same way, and all going to the
same place when it's over, said, and done. They ain't no big ones,
no little ones. We all belong to Him. Oh my. What's your Father's name? God. Our Father which art in
heaven. What's your Lord's name? Jesus.
Jesus Christ the Lord. What's your faith? Jesus Christ
is my all in all. I'm a poor sinner, nothing at
all, but Jesus Christ is my all in all. What's your baptism? Baptized
by the Spirit into the body of Christ. Oh my. Right now, you understand what
Christ means to be made our wisdom as we understand these things
from the scriptures. Alright, let me give you the
last thing. You know, I started out with the atonement incarnation
of our Lord Jesus Christ. He had to have a body. The atonement
of our Lord Jesus Christ. His effectual grace towards us. He broke the body. His body was
the one that's broken. His blood was what was shed.
And when He done that for you, you're gonna be saved. He said,
I've done it for you, for you. He didn't look out to the world
and said, I've done it for all of you. There's a fella stands
out on the road, out there on Genesis Road. If he's out there
any day this week, and I'm gonna stop by and talk to him, because
he sits there with a big sign that says, Jesus is God, and
he loves you. And I'm gonna stop there, God
willing, and I'm gonna say to him, I said, you know, I said,
here, it says that, you know, I believe that Jesus is God.
I don't have no problem with that. But I said, show me in
the Bible where he loved everybody. I said, I can tell you some places
where he didn't love everybody. He doesn't love everyone. And
I, you know, Jacob have I hated. You can't make anything out of
that, but Jacob did I hate. You can't make anything out of
that. And he said he hates the workers of iniquity every day.
And he's angry with the wicked every day. And they'll say, well,
he's just angry with, you know, he said he loves the sinner,
but he hates the sin. Where'd you get that at? So we're
talking about effectual grace. The fact that Jesus is God and
that he loves everyone, that don't accomplish nothing. But
he said, and he told his disciples, when I broke this bread, that's
my body, that's my body. I'm going to the cross. He went
left there after he took the Lord, after they ate the supper.
He went off into Gethsemane and prayed till his sweat became
as great drops of blood. They came and got him and took
him and put him on a mock trial. And then they crucified him.
And he said, this is my broken body. And this blood is gonna
flow from my veins. This blood is gonna flow from
my body. This blood is the New Testament which I shed for you. Now the only question is, are
you one of you? Did he give you the blood? Did he shed it for you? Did he
break his body for you? And that's what he says here.
If he'd done it for everybody, there would not be a lost soul
on this earth nowhere if Christ died for everybody. That's how
powerful and precious and powerful his blood is. Wouldn't you all
agree with that? All right, let me give you my
last point. This also shows us this broken body and shed blood,
this bread and this wine, there's emblems of it, shows the Lord's
sovereignty over His people. He is sovereign over His people.
You know who established this ordinance? The Lord Jesus Christ
did. He is the one who willed for
this to happen. shows his sovereignty over his
people. I broke my body for you. I did it. He said, him being
delivered by the determined counsel and foreknowledge of God, you
took him and you crucified him. But our Lord Jesus Christ, he's
the one that says, and Paul said, as often as you do this, do it
in remembrance of me. And whoa, my, I have no problem
with the Lord Jesus Christ being sovereign. You know, when they
come to get him out of Gethsemane, he said, who are you looking
for? Jesus answered. He said, that's me, that's me.
They fell back. They thought he'd be trembling,
scared to death. They said, they got back up and
said, who you looking for, Jesus? And I said, he said, I am, I
am. The same one that sent Moses
down to Egypt said, I am. And I tell you what, he says,
listen, I broke my bow, I've done this. I gave my back to
the smiters. I gave it to them. I let them
pluck off my beard. I was forsaken of God because
God told me that I wouldn't be. And I tell you what, and I tell
you, he don't ask men, he don't ask men, do you want my broken
body? You don't ask me, do you want my shed blood? He does not
do that. That's not the way Christ operates. Oh my, people say, let Jesus
do this, let Jesus do that. Maybe you know, you need to accept
Jesus. The question is, will he accept
us? Will He have us? Bless His holy name and I want
Him to have me. Thank God for that broken body
and shed blood. He didn't ask men, would you
like to do this? Would you like me to die for
you? Would you like me to shed my blood for you? He didn't ask
them. He said, take eat. He didn't say, would you like
to take it? He said, take it! This is my body. Drink! This is my body. And that's what
he says to us. Eat, drink. I'm the true bread,
and I'm the, this is the New Testament, which is shed in my
blood for you. And remember, he's the one with
authority. And every time we take of this
wonderful, wonderful evening, taking this bread and taking
this wine, we do it in remembrance of Him. And oh, remember that
God commendeth His love toward us in that while we were yet
sinners, Christ died for us. Huh? Remember this, that through,
we joy through God, through Christ who is our atonement. Oh my,
thank God, thank God and bless His holy name that the Lord Jesus
Christ willingly, willingly went to the cross. And you know the
first thing He said when they nailed Him to the cross, He said
this, the first words out of His mouth, Father forgive them,
they know not what they do. And we didn't know what we was
doing, but He did. And He come and saved us anyway. Oh, what a Savior. What a Savior. What a Savior.