Okay, let's look at that passage
that Brother Randy just read in 1 Corinthians chapter 11.
I have in the past preached on the subject of the New Testament,
New Covenant church ordinances, but it's been a while and I thought
about that since we're taking the Lord's Supper this morning.
This is a passage that I always read from when we take the Lord's
Supper, communion as some call it. And I thought, well, this
would be a good opportunity to go through these scriptures. There are two New Testament,
New Covenant, church ordinances, commandments, that's what an
ordinance is, it's a law. Some people don't like to use
the word law because they can't get away from thinking about
the old covenant law or the Ten Commandments, but when Christ
gave word to his disciples, his church, I can tell you one thing,
he wasn't making suggestions. It had the force of law. For
example, you read this phrase in the Lord's Supper, this do
in remembrance of me, this do. This is not your option, that's
what he's telling us. This is not, well, yeah, if you
feel like it today, take the Lord's, no, it's due. Same way
with the other church ordinance is baptism. And in thinking about
this and going over the Lord's Supper, I've also decided to
preach more than one message on the subject of baptism because
both Both ordinances, both the baptism and the Lord's Supper
have been so perverted and so confused. And what most people
think of in these areas and what they practice is totally unscriptural. And I'm not just here just to
put down other people. I'm not trying to offend people.
I just want you to know the truth from the scriptures. What does
God's word say about this? One of the first things you need
to understand is that these ordinances are not sacraments. Have you heard that term sacrament?
The sacraments. The word sacrament literally
means something that has saving power connected with it. That's
what the word means. Saving power is connected with
it. And here's what I want to tell
you. There is no saving power connected with any church ordinance. There's no saving power connected
with anything that we do or don't do as to attaining or maintaining
salvation. In other words, there's no saving
power in the waters of baptism. There's no saving power in taking
communion. All saving power is in the Lord
Jesus Christ alone and in his finished, accomplished, redemptive
work for his people. And that's exactly what these
ordinances testify of. When we talk about baptism, and
let me say this too, These are, now listen, these are New Testament,
New Covenant, church ordinances. Now what that means is this,
only the true church is to participate in them. Okay, and what's the
word church mean? Do you know what it means? Well,
that's a building down the street. No, church is not a building
at all. The church is made up of God's
chosen, redeemed, regenerated people, born again. The church
is a body of believers. That's what it is. The word literally
means, in the original, called out ones, those who have been
called out of the world and into the family, the household of
God. That's what it means. So, these
are church ordinances only to be engaged in and participated
in by members of the body of Christ, believers. Secondly,
these church ordinances are always to be connected with the preaching
of the true gospel. Outside the true gospel, you
know what they are? Religious motions. Somebody said,
well, I didn't believe the gospel of God's sovereign grace, but
I was baptized when I was 13. You weren't baptized, friend,
not biblically. You were dunked in water. You
just took a bath. Now, if that's offensive, I'm sorry. But baptism
outside the truth is just a religious ritual. And it's been so perverted
in our country, it's almost like a rite of passage. In most churches
today, their goal is to get kids down the aisle as fast as they
can and into the baptistry so that mom and dad can have some
peace at night. Well listen, I pray for the salvation
of everyone who hears the gospel. Somebody talks about an age of
accountability. I don't know what that is. I
know it's different for different people probably if they think
about it, but I don't know. All I simply know is that baptism
is for believers. But now I'm gonna preach a couple
messages on that issue later. But that's a church ordinance. I can tell you this much, it's
not by sprinkling. It's not by pouring, not biblically
now, and it's not to be done to babies. That's so, there's nothing in
the scripture that would lead any rational person to conclude
that they baptized infants. Infant baptism was started by
the, maybe not started originally, but it was institutionalized
by the Catholic Church to gain control over people, political
control. And that's what it was for. Baptism,
the word baptism means to immerse, to dip, to be placed into. And it's a picture of the believer's
identification and public confession of identification with Christ. When he died, I died. We go down
into the water. When he was buried, we go down
into the water. I was buried. When he arose again,
I arose again. But we'll talk about that later.
Let's get on to the passage here. Now the Lord's baptism is the
initial public confession of a believer to the world that
he or she has identified with Christ. It's to be done one time. Believer's baptism. The Lord's
Supper is a continual memorial ordinance to be participated
in by the church collectively as oft as they meet to eat and
drink this wine and eat this unleavened bread. The scripture
doesn't tell us how often we're to do it. Some churches believe,
well, you should do it every Sunday, and others believe we
do it like every quarter. But there's nothing in the word
that says, well, you've got to do it here, there, and how many
times. But it's a continual memorial ordinance. It's a confession.
of our continued faith in Christ. That's what it is. That's what
the Lord's Supper is. Now here, the Lord's Supper was
instituted by the Lord, and you can read about it in several
passages of scripture, Matthew 26, Mark, Luke, and John give
an account of it, where he met in the upper room with his disciples
on the Passover, the Jewish feast of the Passover. It was during
the celebration of the Passover, on the eve of his death, that
Christ instituted this, not the exact night before his death,
but on the eve of his being arrested and going through that process
of suffering unto death, that he instituted this new fellowship
meal. That's what it is. It's an act
of faith and it's an act of fellowship between believers that we observe
even to this day. is an integral part of Christian
worship. That's why the Lord's Supper
is worship. We're worshiping Christ. It causes us to remember
our Lord's death, His resurrection, and to look for His glorious
return in the future. You remember the Passover. That
was the most sacred Jewish feast of their religious year. And
it commemorated the final plague on Egypt when the firstborn of
the Egyptians died and the Israelites were spared because of one thing,
the blood of the lamb on the door. Why did God spare? He said, when I see the blood,
I will pass over you. What does that blood mean? That
equals death. The lamb was then roasted and eaten with unleavened
bread. Why unleavened bread? Because
leaven in the scripture back then was a type of sin. And there
was no sin to be found in the lamb. That's Christ. God's command was that throughout
the generations to come to this feast that be celebrated. And
you can read about all that in Exodus chapter 12. But during
the Last Supper, what they call the Last Supper, in the upper
room, which was a Passover celebration, Christ, what he did, he took
a loaf of unleavened bread, and he gave thanks to God. And he
broke that loaf into pieces, and he gave it to his disciples,
and he said, this is my body given for you, this do in remembrance
of me. And then in the same way after
the supper, he took the cup, the cup of wine, It's not grape
juice, but wine. And somebody said, well, that
had to be unfermented. Are you crazy? This cup is the new covenant,
he said, in my blood, which is poured out for you. The broken
body, that represents his substitutionary sacrifice on the cross. The blood
means he died. He suffered, he obeyed unto death. To do what? To satisfy. Listen, he shed his blood unto
death, not to make me savable. Not to make salvation possible
if I would just cooperate. No, he did it to satisfy the
justice of God, and as the Bible teaches, to bring in a righteousness
that answers the demands of God's law and justice, to ensure the
salvation of his sheep. That's what that blood means. He said in Luke chapter 22, he
said, this cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured
out for you. Substitution, satisfaction, imputation,
our sins, the sins of his sheep, charged, accounted, imputed to
him, his righteousness imputed to his people. And he concluded
the feast by singing a hymn, and they went out into the night
to the Mount of Olives, and it was there that Christ was betrayed,
as predicted, and the following day he was crucified. Now, in 1 Corinthians chapter
11, where Paul reminds the Corinthians about this, what he calls a love
feast, That's what the Lord's Supper was called because it
was an expression acknowledging God's unconditional love for
his people in sending Christ to be their substitute, their
lamb, their surety, and it was an expression of love to one
another in the Lord. And he calls it a love feast.
So Paul reminds them their what this love feast this communion
this ordinance really means because they were abusing it Man everything we get our hands
on we're gonna mess up Unless by the Holy Spirit we're
Focused in on the Word of God That's what I tell you and I
guess some people get tired of me here me saying this but listen
I If it's not in the word of God, if you can't listen, forget
about it and leave it alone. You know, the Corinthians, it
was a church of professing believers that had a lot of problems. There
was a lot of division in the church. They divided over preachers. Well, I like Paul. I like Apollos. Paul said, I don't like any of
you. And he said, he reminded him,
he said, look, Paul and Apollos and Peter, they're not your salvation,
Christ is. Some of them were bragging about
their baptism. You know, we put so much stock in, who baptized
you? Joe Schmoe from Kokomo. If he's
a believer, it doesn't matter. Oh, I was baptized by Dr. So-and-so,
you know. Well, what big deal, that's what
Paul's saying. He said, I thank God I didn't baptize any of you.
so that you could brag about that. Later on, you see, they divided
over spiritual gifts, the gifts of ministry, the gifts of preaching. But here they were dividing over
the Lord's Supper. Look at verse 17. He says in 1 Corinthians
11, 17, Now in this that I declare unto you, I praise you not, that
you come together not for the better but for the worse. When
you come together to partake of the Lord's Supper, it's not
for the better, it's for the worse. He says, for first of
all, when you come together in the church, I hear that there
be divisions. That word divisions you'll see
in your concordance is schisms among you. And I said, I partly
believe it. Now Paul's not saying there that
partly I believe it and partly I don't. What he's actually saying
in that phrase in the original would go something like this,
I'm not surprised. I'm not surprised. Given all
the other junk that's going on in this church, he said, I'm
not surprised. But he reckoned, listen to this now. He recognized
God's purpose in all this. Do you know, I do not want to
be a divisive person among brethren. But whoever causes division,
God has a purpose for it. Now that doesn't speak well of
the person who causes the division, not at all. But God has a purpose
for it. Look at verse 19. He says, for
there must be heresies, divisions, schisms among you. Why? Why? Somebody says, why would
God allow this to go on? Well, here's the reason. That
they which are approved may be manifest among you. This is how
God, this is one of the ways God exposes true believers from
false professors. Did you know that? I don't want
to be a false professor. How about you? I claim to be
a Christian. I don't want to be a false Christian.
How about you? On our television program, I
mentioned these books that we've got out on what is a Christian,
what is salvation, rightly divided, and that's why they're there.
Examine yourself, whether you be in the faith, and do it biblically. Verse 20, listen to this, he
says, when you come together, therefore in one place, this
is not to eat the Lord's supper. Now they called it the Lord's
supper, but it wasn't the Lord's supper. For in eating, everyone
taketh before other his own supper, and one is hungry and another
is drunk. Listen, what they were doing, they were using it like
you go to your house and sit down at your table and you're
hungry and you fill up on food that's been cooked. That's not
the Lord's Supper. Now, certainly we acknowledge
the Lord is blessing us with that food, but that's not this
ordinance. That's not the Lord's Supper.
It's not given to you to fill your physical hunger. And then
look at this. Boy, you talk about abuse. Somebody
said, well, they're drinking grape juice. Well, have you ever
been drunk on grape juice? I never have been. It says, and
another is drunken. Whatever they were drinking,
some of them were abusing it to the point of getting drunk.
They were turning the Lord's Supper into a drunken party. You say, well, I would never
do that. Be careful. You don't know what you're capable
of doing. Me neither. And Paul says in verse 22, what?
That's the way of God. Well, have you not houses to
eat and drink in? He says, or despise you the church
of God. Now what he's talking about there,
what happened was, it's like any other group, you know, there
are different socioeconomic spheres there, stratosphere, and some
of them were wealthy, some of them were poor. Those who were
wealthy, they brought food and they ate sumptuously. And those
who were poor, they didn't have hardly anything to eat. And the
rich were ignoring the poor. That's what happened. And that's
what he means when he says, or do you despise the church of
God? That poor brother or sister is a brother or sister in Christ,
and they're in need, and you're over here filling your fat belly,
and they're over there starving, and you don't care? Do you despise
the church of God? And shame them that have not?
You make them ashamed of being poor? He said, what shall I say to
you? Shall I praise you in this? He said, I praise you not. And then he begins to teach the
reality of the Lord's Supper. What is the Lord's Supper? Well,
look at verse 23. I received of the Lord that which
also I delivered unto you. The first thing that he brings
out is that the knowledge of this supper, the command of this
supper, is not of man. It's not a man-made ordinance.
It's not anything that man is. It's from the Lord. This is from
the Lord. This is by revelation of Christ. He's the author of it. This is of the Lord. Look at
verse 23. He said that the Lord Jesus,
the same night in which he was betrayed, took breath. Christ
is the author of this ordinance. And he did it that same night,
the same night that he was betrayed and that he was arrested. And then look at the elements
of this supper. Now let me caution you on this. We'll look at verse
24. He says, when he had given thanks,
he break it. Now they're taking the Passover
here. And he break it, and he said, take ye, this is my body,
which is broken for you, this do in remembrance for me. That's
the bread. Now that's unleavened bread. Unleavened bread. As I said,
leaven in the scripture is a type of evil, a type of sin. And the
reason it is, you know, you can put a little leaven into a lump
of dough and what does it do? It spreads all the way through,
just like sin in the heart. Remember he told them, beware
of the leaven of the scribes and the Pharisees. What was he
talking about? Their false doctrine, their false gospel. This wasn't
saltine crackers. This wasn't Doritos. I heard
a preacher preaching on this and he said, doesn't matter what
we use for the Lord's Supper, he said, I did it once on the
beach with a bunch of guys with Doritos and Pepsi. Now, what's the problem? Well,
that kind of idea comes from the false religious idea that
good intentions are enough. Good intentions are not, listen,
I hope you have good intentions this morning, I hope I have,
but good intentions that are based on a lie and result in
a lie, they're a lie. You know somebody said that the
road to hell is paved with good intentions. This is the Lord's
command. Verse 25, after the same manner,
also he took the cup, and when he supped, he said, this cup
is the new covenant or new testament in my blood. That's the wine,
bread and wine. Bread is, this unleavened bread
symbolizes the pure, sinless humanity of our Savior, who as
God-man offered himself up without spot to God. You see, our Savior,
the Savior of sinners, has to be sinless in Himself. Or He's not qualified to save
me from my sins. Somebody said, well, wasn't He
made sin according to 2 Corinthians 5.21? Yes, but only by imputation. That is, the debt, the demerit
of the sins of His people was charged to Him legally. And he
became guilty, not because there was sin in him, no laughing there,
but because sin was charged, accounted to him. And so when he died, he died
for sins, not in him. He had no sinful thoughts, no
sinful desires, no sinful motives. He had no corruption in himself,
but he had sin charged to him so that God was just to punish
his son. as the substitute, the lamb,
the surety of his people. And out of his death, his blood,
came righteousness, which is imputed to his people. You see,
I stand before God in a righteousness that I had no part in producing.
Christ produced it all. It's all Him. Somebody said, well, don't your
works count for anything? Not in God's court, they don't.
But our works are the fruit effect result of what Christ accomplished
on Calvary. He's the vine. We're the what? Branches. We don't produce fruit. That's a misnomer. You ever hear
preachers say, we're fruit producers. No, we're not. We don't produce
fruit. We're fruit bearers. Christ produces it. He's the
vine. The life is in the vine. We bear
it. Alright, so there's the elements.
The bread represents his body, broken. The wine represents his
blood, which is his death, which is his righteousness imputed
to his people. And he says, look here in verse
24, when he had given thanks, he break it and said, take, eat,
this is my body, which is broken for you. This do in remembrance
of me. He speaks of his blood, which
was shed for many, he said, in the book of Matthew and the book
of Luke. How many? We don't know, but it's all of
God's chosen people. All who believe in the Lord Jesus
Christ. You ever heard the term transubstantiation? That's the
Catholic doctrine that when the priest administers the wafer
and the wine, that it actually turns into the body and blood
of Christ. That's a lie. And then there's the doctrine
of consubstantiation. They say that it symbolically
turns into the body. No, it doesn't. It symbolizes
his body. It symbolizes his blood, but
it didn't turn into anything. It's an act of faith. Faith in
Christ. Using these symbols. But notice here, he said in both
cases, this do in remembrance of me. When you take the wafer,
When you take that bread, that unleavened bread, and when you
drink that wine, this do in remembrance of me. It should be observed
frequently, but no time is specified. Look at verse 26, he says, for
as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup. And what is the purpose of it?
Look here, verse 20, 26. You do show the Lord's death
till he comes. That's what it's all about. That's
what the Lord's Supper's all about. It's about his death,
his burial, his resurrection. It's about his accomplished redemptive
work. It's about his righteousness,
which justifies me before God. That's what I need to have on
my mind and in my heart. That's what I need to remember.
That's what the Lord's Supper's all about. Well, who is to take
this supper? Well, look at verse 27. Now,
notice what he said there. He said in verse 26, as often
as you do this, you do show the Lord's death till he come. Verse
27 begins with a wherefore. Read it this way, for this reason,
for this reason, whosoever shall eat this bread and drink this
cup of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood
of the Lord. Who is qualified to take the
Lord's Supper? A sinner saved by grace. What
qualifies him? Well, you had a good week this
past week, you didn't lose your temper, you didn't cheat anybody,
you were faithful to your wife, you didn't beat your children,
therefore you're qualified today to take it with. Is that what
this book says? You know that's what most people
say. I've had people say, well I'm not going to take it today
because I just had a bad week and I sinned with a high hand.
Listen, if you had a great week, and if you had the best week
you've ever had on earth, or ever will have, that still does
not qualify you to take the Lord's Supper. What qualifies a sinner to take
the Lord's death? His blood, His righteousness,
there's the qualification. What is your hope? Again, who
are you trusting? If you trust Christ, the true
Christ, as He's identified and described and distinguished in
this book, the God-man who satisfied justice, who brought forth righteousness,
who made salvation a sure thing for His people, if that's who
you trust, then you're commanded to take of this ordinance. That's
a believer. You say, well, I had a bad thought.
You're going to have more of them too. Does that disqualify
you? Well, if it does, you're not
trusting the Lord. Well, preacher, you're saying
we can just live like we want. No, I'm not. I'm telling you
to trust in the Lord. plead his blood and righteousness,
that's what it is. Anybody who takes this supper
not trusting Christ, not pleading his righteousness imputed as
the only ground upon which a holy God can save you, bless you,
forgive you, and justify, if you take it without believing
in him, you're eating and drinking unworthily and you're guilty
of his body and his blood, like an unbeliever, that's what that
means. Unbelievers are not to take of the Lord's Supper. All
right? Well, look on. He says, verse
28, but let a man examine himself. And so let him eat of that bread
and drink of that cup. Now you're to examine yourself.
You know, I know some churches who use the Lord's Supper as
a tool of discipline. And they say, well, we're not
going to allow so-and-so to take the Lord's Supper because, no. You're to examine yourself. Do
you believe what this book says concerning salvation and who
Christ is, what he did, why he did it, and where he is now?
Do you really believe that? Well, you examine yourself. We're
going to serve the Lord's Supper. Now, you examine yourself according
to the word now as to whether or not you should take it. And
so he says in verse 29, for he that eateth and drinketh unworthily,
eateth and drinketh damnation, that's judgment to himself, not
discerning the Lord's body. A person who eats and drinks
of this supper without believing shows their lostness. And if
continued in that unto death, eternal damnation. But there's
one other thing, and I'm not gonna go into this in detail
this morning, because I don't have time. But here's what he
says in verse 30, verse 30. For this cause many are weak
and sickly among you and many sleep, that's death. For if we
would judge ourselves, we should not be judged. If we examine
ourselves and find that we're trusting Christ, the true Christ,
we'll not be judged. But when we are judged, we're
chastened of the Lord that we should not be condemned with
the world. Many of these Corinthians were getting sick and dying. as a judgment of God upon them
for their behavior and he calls it chastisement. Now let me tell
you something about chastisement. Chastisement is not a sinner
paying for their sins. In fact, to get technical, you
can't pay for your sins. Did you know that? I can't pay for my sins. That's
why the ultimate penalty for sin, dying without Christ, is
eternal damnation. Because payment will never be
made. Only Christ paid for sin. Jesus
paid it all for his people. But God sometimes, out of his
wisdom, chastises his children. And what chastisement is not
payment for sin, it's punishment for correction. Sometimes that
involves physical death. We can't say for sure. We don't
have the wisdom or the knowledge to go around pronouncing that
stuff on people. Read the book of Job. That's
what his miserable, comforting friends were trying to do. We're
trying to figure out why God's doing this to you, Job. We don't
know. All we have to do is shut up
and listen to God. That's why Job said, I shut my mouth. But he says in verse 33, wherefore,
my brethren, when you come together to eat, tarry one for another. Wait and serve one another. And if any man hunger, let him
eat at home. Don't use this supper. We're
going to eat in the back to fulfill our physical hunger. But that's
not the Lord's Supper back there, see. If that's what you're here
for in taking this, go home and eat. Get you a bologna sandwich
or something, I don't know. But he says that you come not
together unto condemnation, which means judgment, and the rest
will I set in order when I come.