If you'd care to open your Bibles
with me to Psalm 135, that's where our message will be from
this evening. You see, we're going to observe
the Lord's table this evening. I did not announce that. I didn't
really plan it ahead on Sunday, but yesterday when I finished
my notes for this evening, I thought this would be a perfect time
to observe the Lord's table. I was telling Bob and Carla earlier,
every message ought to be tied directly to the Lord's table,
shouldn't it? Every message ought, if not, it ought not be preached.
Every message ought to so clearly, the center of it, be the sacrifice
of Christ. But I thought this particular
outline would be well served to observe the Lord's table. So we'll do that following the
message. We'll begin our reading, Psalm 135, in verse 13. Thy name,
O Lord, endureth forever. in thy memorial, O Lord, throughout
all generations. For the Lord will judge his people,
and he will repent himself concerning his servants. The idols of the
heathen are silver and gold, the work of men's hands. They
have mouths, but they speak not. Eyes have they, but they see
not. They have ears, but they hear not. Neither is there any
breath in their mouths. They that make them are like
unto them. So is everyone that trusted them. Bless the Lord,
O house of Israel. Bless the Lord, O house of Aaron.
Bless the Lord, O house of Levi. Ye that fear the Lord, bless
the Lord. Blessed be the Lord out of Zion,
which dwelleth at Jerusalem. Praise ye the Lord. Thank God
for His Word. Let's bow together. Our Father, we thank You that
This is the day appointed where we can meet together here in
the middle of the week and to meet together with our brethren
and to worship Thee. And Father, I pray that this
evening you give us a spirit of true worship. Father, enable
us to set aside the cares, the worries, the joys and delights
of this world. And Father, for this hour, let
us set our affection upon the Lord Jesus Christ. Let us set
our heart to hear his word, to hear more of him, to believe
him, to believe him more fully, to love him and to trust him,
to love him and trust him more fully. Enable us to hear the
message of Christ this evening and to leave here with joy in
our heart, joy at the sacrifice of such a one as the Lord Jesus
Christ for such sinful men and women such as we are. Father,
we're thankful for all the blessings of this life you so freely bestowed
upon us on top of giving your people every spiritual blessing
that there is to be had. You blessed us materially and
physically, and Father, we're thankful. We're thankful for
the good report we've had on Those who've been sick and hurting
and, Father, for others who are still in deep waters, we pray
for them. We pray for your hand of healing,
your hand of comfort and direction. Be with your people, Father,
in a special way, we pray. We continue to pray for our world
and our country at this time that should move in power to
give us some relief from this pandemic and let people return
back to their normal lives and work and school. Father, if it
could be Thy will, we pray You'd deliver us. All these things
we ask and we give thanks in that name which is above every
name. The name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Amen. Alright, Psalm 135. I titled
the message this evening, The Lord's Judgment of His People. And I took that from verse 14.
For the Lord will judge His people. and he will repent himself concerning
his servants." Every single writer that I read on this verse talked
about how the Lord will judge or correct his children. I mean,
the way they wrote about it is like, you know, you better watch
out. You better behave or the Lord's going to correct you.
He'll get you now. And they did say, now the Lord will repent
himself concerning his people. The Lord's not going to destroy
you, but now he'll painfully correct you. He'll restrain himself,
but he will painfully correct you if you don't do right. You don't live right. You're
not being an obedient child. Now that's true. That's true.
The Lord will correct His children. Whom the Lord loveth, He chasteneth,
and He scourgeth every son whom He receiveth. Any wise father
corrects his children. And our heavenly Father is all
wise." So he'll correct his children. Certainly, that's true. And we're
thankful. We all need it. We don't like
it, but we all need it, don't we? We all need that correction
from our Father. We can't deny that. But I have a word of caution
about that, about focusing on this being the meaning of the
verse. Watch out, because the Father will correct you if you
don't live right. If we focus on that, if we set our focus
on this, that the Lord will correct His children when they don't
act right, It'll lead us to self-righteousness. It surely will. It'll lead to
self-righteousness because every time we see one of God's children,
not me, someone else, when we see them suffering a trial, this
is what we'll think. We'll think, I wonder what they
did to deserve that. Now, we don't think that about
ourselves when a trial comes. We think that about others. What
did they do to deserve that? What's the Lord correcting them
for? See, that leads to self-righteousness, because then I'm going to think,
well, you know, the only reason I'm not in a trial like they
are now is I've been so much better than them. The Lord doesn't
need to correct me. See, if we focus on that, that's going to
lead us to self-righteousness. And I know beyond a shadow of
a doubt, that is not what the psalmist is primarily talking
about in this verse. Now, it's true. Please understand, the Lord will
correct his children if he loves us. He will correct us. But that's
not the primary meaning of the text. And we have to look at
this verse in context. Go back up and look at the verse
before it, verse 13. Thy name, O Lord, endureth forever. In thy memorial, O Lord, throughout
all generations. Now here the psalmist tells us
the Lord's going to be famous for something. So famous, his
fame is going to go from generation to generation to generation.
It's not going to be forgotten. It's not going to be diminished.
This is going to be famous in every generation. Now, the Lord's
fame is going to come from something greater than him correcting his
children. Don't you agree with that? The Lord's fame that will
be found in every generation will be throughout all of human
time and will be the theme of eternity. It's God's redeeming,
saving grace. that comes to sinners like you
and me through the sacrifice of God's only begotten Son, the
Lord Jesus Christ. Let me show you that here in
our text. In verse 13, the word name there means renown and fame
and glory. The fame and the glory of the
Lord is going to be forever. It'll be in every generation. The Lord is renowned and He's
famous for everything He does. He should be. He should be just
renowned and we should stand in awe of everything God does. The Lord is famous. He should
be famous. There should never be anybody
thinking about evolution. The Lord should be famous in
creation. God spoke and everything in creation
instantly appeared. Just when he spoke. Nobody else
can do that. Nobody else has the power to
do that. And you know, you and I should never Not just that
we know that the Lord created heaven and earth, but you know,
we should never take the beauty of God's creation for granted.
One morning last week, I got up, I was making my coffee, looking
out the kitchen window, and I watched the sunrise that I mean just
absolutely took my breath away. The colors, they were blue and
pink and red and these just these perfectly shaped white clouds,
I mean, You would have thought it was a cartoon if you didn't
know better. I would have just thought this
is an artist's rendering of a sunrise. No sunrise can look this glorious.
But it wasn't painted by an artist. It was painted by the finger
of God. He just put beauty in his creation for beauty's sake. Just beauty's sake. It wasn't
there very long. But I got to see it. For those
few minutes, I got to see those colors. God's famous for that,
for the beauty, the wonder of His creation. Earth has been
here. Man's been on it 6,000 years.
I don't know how long Earth's been here. Man's been on it 6,000
years. And I guess we haven't had microscopes and different
things, you know, for nearly all that time. But you know,
man is still, still, learning new things about nature, about
creation. God's famous for it. And the
Lord's famous for how He governs and how He runs His creation.
You think how many disasters have been avoided by just the
smallest little thing? A weather front, a weird, just
so weird, it never happens, this weather front came in. And it
came between George Washington's army and the British army and
let Washington escape. If that storm hadn't come up,
Washington's army would have been destroyed, and you and I
would still be saluting the Union Jack. The weird weather just
came up and delivered his army and eventually provided freedom
for this country. God did that, just with the weather. Just think of miraculous discoveries
that mankind For centuries, people just get the smallest cut. I
read about this fella. He had a rose garden. He was
working in his rose garden. And he got a cut on his finger
from a rose. And before long, he died. That
thing got infected, and he died. And one day, some fella discovered
penicillin and got the idea of taking this fungus and whatever
it is and injecting it in somebody and healing people. How many
thousands of lives have been saved by... How did that man
figure that out? God gave it to him. God gave
it. He just gave that for the good of his creation, of the
people in his creation. Those things are accidents. That's
God ruling his creation. Isn't that wonderful? It's wonderful.
One day, somebody might be talking a hundred years from now, that
pandemic they had back there in 2020. And God just miraculously
ended it somehow. I mean, who knows? I hope that's
what they say, don't you? But I'll tell you the greatest
act, the greatest act of God that brings God the most fame
and the most glory is how God redeemed his people from their
sin. Almighty God redeemed his people
from their sin by paying their sin debt for them. A sin debt
that was against him, and he paid it. He paid it for his people.
See, when God redeemed His people, He didn't just cancel their sin
debt. He didn't say, well, forget about it. We'll write it off
to bad debt. I worked at the warehouse. At
the end of every fiscal year, we had to write off bad debt.
I'm telling you, it just griped me. I could not stand that, to
write off. Well, God didn't do it either.
That's not right. I just thought, that's not right.
These people ought not to get away with this. God didn't just
write off the debt of His people to bad debt. Instead, he redeemed
his people by paying their sin debt. And when it came time to
pay the sin debt of his people, the father didn't reach into
his wallet and pull out and get some money to pay it. He didn't
get some silver and gold mined from his creation. He sent his
son, made of a woman, made flesh. And he sent his son to be a man.
And when his appointed time came, when his hour finally came, how
many times does his earthly ministry, his hour has not yet come. But
when his hour was come, the father took his son and slaughtered
him. And took the precious blood of
his only begotten son and used that blood to pay the sin debt
of rebels, wretches like you and me. The glory of that can never be
told. I mean, it's the joy of preaching to
get to talk about the sacrifice of Christ, all what he's accomplished
for his people. But I tell you the frustrating
thing about preaching, you can never tell it well enough. You
can't tell it big enough. You can't tell it grand enough.
You can't tell it glorious enough. God redeeming sinners by the
sacrifice of his son. And the fame of that spreads
to every corner of the globe to every generation as long as
man is on earth. The fame of God's redemptive
glory through the sacrifice of his son is going to be found
in every generation because God did something so great. You can
rest assured of this. He's not going to keep it hidden.
He's going to make it known. The fame of it is going to be
known. He's going to make sure his people know about it. Lord's
done this for his people. He's going to make them know
about it. And the psalmist says here that the Lord has a memorial,
and the word means a remembrance. And I thought about memorials
we build. We build memorials to famous people, to remember
famous events. You know, we build statues to
former presidents or generals or something. You know, we build
monuments to remember a site of historic battles, people that
have done something great for society. There's even a memorial. I've seen it. There's a memorial.
It's in a parking lot now, but there's a memorial on the spot
where the baseball landed, where Pete Rose broke Ty Cobb's record.
They built a memorial for that. Like Pete would ever let you
forget it, but there's a memorial there. There's a little plaque
there in the parking lot. This is where that ball landed. We
build these memorials and monuments for something we want to remember.
And what do we see happen in society today, years later? people
want to start tearing these monuments down, these memorials down. Because the person we built them
to, yeah, they're not as lily white as society wants them to
be. They don't forget about what the culture was 500 years ago
when Columbus came to the United States or to the Americas. He wouldn't work in our society
today. So we want to tear down the memorial to him. Well, God
has a memorial. He has a memorial to His great
work of redemption. And that memorial is going to
stand eternally. It'll never be torn down. You're going to
find men that want to, but they'll never be able to accomplish it.
They'll never tear it down. Because like I said, God's not
going to do something so wonderful for His people and let them forget
about it. He's going to give them a place
to remember and to celebrate His glorious work of redemption
for His people. And God's given His people a
memorial to His glory and to His fame. And God's memorial
is what we're doing right now, the preaching of the gospel.
That's God's memorial. The memorial is the preaching
of Christ that tells sinners how it is that God put away the
sin of His people through the sacrifice of His Son. And God
did this work by the work of the whole Godhead, Father, Son,
and Holy Spirit. God the Father elected a people
to save. He reached down and He chose.
He reached down into the muck, into the mire, into the filth
of Adam's fallen race and He chose some to save. And God the
Son came into flesh and He redeemed those people that the Father
chose. The Father chose those people and gave Him to His Son
to redeem. And God the Son came in human
flesh. And He obeyed the law for those
people. And then He was made sin for those And He put their
sin away by His bloody, painful sacrifice. The sacrifice we'll
remember here in just a few minutes. And the Holy Spirit comes and
He gives those dead sinners life. He gives them faith in Christ
so they believe Him, so they come to Him, so they rest in
Him. And He does it through this memorial, through the preaching
of the Gospel. And like I said, it's never going
to be torn down. Never. God's going to seek to
it that the preaching of the Gospel continues until the end
of human time. Because as long as there's a
people on this earth, God has a people he's going to save. God has sheep that he intends
to feed and to guide and to help and to comfort. And he's going
to do it through this memorial, through the preaching of the
gospel. It pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save
them to believe. And God's going to bless that
preaching. He's going to bless it to the salvation of his people.
He's going to bless it so His people grow in grace. He's going
to bless the preaching of His Son to the comfort and assurance
of the hearts of His people, so they don't lose hope, so they
don't just be lost in despair. God's going to keep this memorial,
the preaching of His Son, because this is His most glorious work.
The salvation of His people through the obedience and through the
sacrifice of His Son, and God's not going to let creation forget
it. He's not going to let His people
forget it. This work of redemption is so glorious. God's going to
make sure somebody in every generation sees the glory of it and believes
it and loves it. As long as this earth stands
until the Lord returns, we'll have this memorial. Now let's
look at verse 14 in context. For the Lord will judge his people
and will repent himself concerning his servants. Now again, please
don't misunderstand me. There's no doubt that the Lord
will judge. He will correct His people. We all need it. We don't want
it, we don't like it, but we all need it. But the word judge
here means to execute judgment, justice. And it also means to
plead the cause. It means both, to execute justice
and to plead the cause. So you know the psalmist here,
he's not talking about God correcting. chastening His people, is He?
He's talking about justice. He's talking about judgment against
sin. And this ties, you remember,
in context now to the previous verse. We're still talking about
God's greatest work. The work that brings Him this
glory and fame that will last in every generation. His work
of redemption. Now you've heard this, everybody
here has heard this many times. God is holy. And that means God
must fully punish every sin Every son of Adam, God must punish
sin. His elect included. The people
that He loves included. So if God's going to save anybody,
their sin must be fully punished. The debt's got to be paid in
full. And that's something you and
I can't do. We can't suffer enough to take away our sin. Because
our life is worthless. Our blood is worthless. We can't
suffer enough to put away our sin. We can't suffer enough and
we can't be good enough to pay God back for some of our sin
against Him. So if God would execute justice
on us for our sin, you and I would spend eternity in hell. Because
our suffering and our death, no matter how long it lasts,
could never even pay for one sin. Because our blood is polluted. Our life is worthless. So when
God saved His people from their sin, He made Christ our substitute
to be sin for us. When the father made his son
sin, he made him to be all of the sin of all of his people
in one place. He made his son to be a mass
of sin, to be sin itself. And then the father executed
justice on his son as our substitute. All of the Father's wrath for
all of that sin was poured out on Christ, our substitute, until
God's wrath was gone. And the wrath was gone when the
sin was gone. In Christ's death, His blood
could put that sin away because His blood's precious. His blood's
pure. His life means something. His
life is perfect. See, without the shedding of
blood, there's no remission. But it can't just be anybody's
blood now. It obviously can't be animal blood, can it? The
best thing an animal can do, can provide blood, that would
be a picture of Christ. It can't be our blood. Our blood's
full of sin. It's just like trying to wash
your hands in a bucket of oil. It won't do any good. Trying
to cleanse our sin with our filthy blood, that's not going to accomplish
anything. Without the shedding of blood,
pure, perfect, sinless blood, there's no remission. It takes
perfect blood, pure blood to atone for sin. Now the Lord Jesus
Christ was a man, just like you and me. He had flesh and bones
and blood and body just like you and me. With this exception,
He's sinless. He's perfect. He had no sin.
He knew no sin. He did no sin. He's perfectly
holy. So His blood is perfect. His
blood is sinless blood and His blood atones. His blood wiped
out and cleansed away all of the sin that the Father laid
upon Him. And it's gone. So the Father did execute justice
on the sin of His people, didn't He? He didn't just let them go
scot-free. Well, He let them go scot-free.
It didn't cost them nothing, did it? It cost the Son of God
His life. It cost the Son of God His blood.
The Father executed justice on the sin of His people by punishing
Christ our And then in justice, because justice demanded it,
he let his people go free. Because they're sinless. They
have no sin. They must go free because their
sin was punished fully in the person of their substitute. Now that message is preached
from this pulpit every single week. Some of us here have heard
that message repeated three times a week, sometimes four times
a week, our entire life. Our entire life. God help us from ever becoming
so gospel hardened and so puffed up with pride that what we know,
the doctrine that we know, how we see what we're right and what
all these idolaters are doing wrong, God help us to never become
so gospel hardened that the sacrifice of Christ for a wretch like me
is not so glorious and so astounding that it just doesn't overwhelm
us. It just doesn't overwhelm us. I'm not talking about making
a false show of emotion now, but that ought to overwhelm us.
That somebody so wonderful would do something so great for a lowlife
like me. I mean for as low as you can
get. For a rebel. Oh my. See the glory of this,
the fame of this. God's going to make it known
to every generation. He's not going to let his son
do something so wonderful and not let his people know about
it. God's going to make sure they know about it. He's going
to remind them over and over and over again. He's going to
remind them through this memorial, the preaching of Christ. Now
remember the word judge, it means to execute justice. but also
means to plead the cause. Christ, our substitute, he died
for the sin of his people. But then he rose again. He didn't
stay dead, he rose again. And he went back to glory, where
right now scripture tells us we know exactly what he's doing.
Right now, he ever lives making intercession for his people.
Pleading his blood, pleading his sacrifice for his people. Now since he died, and he shed
his blood, Now he can plead the cause, can't he? He's got something
to plead. We're the cause. Our sin, our
lost estate is the cause. But he's got something to plead.
He's got his precious blood. He's got his sacrifice. He's
got his obedience. Christ makes intercession for
his people. You know, we say by pleading his blood, by pleading
his sacrifice. But really, he doesn't have to
say a word. Sitting at the right hand of
his father, he doesn't even have to say a word. Because when the
father sees his son, he sees the scars in his hands, his feet. He sees the scar in his side,
the scar in his head. Those scars are proof positive. They're constant reminders, evidence
before the bar of God's justice that the sin of God's elect has
already been punished. It's been paid for in full. And
if He makes intercession for His people, just by sitting there
in the presence of the Father, His intercession is always granted.
Because the Father is well pleased with anyone for whom Christ died.
Our intercessor, our advocate before the Father. If any man
sinned, we have an advocate before the Father. Anybody made it to
this point in the day without sinning? No. You can't make it
out of bed in the morning, can you? Well, when any man sin,
we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous. And he has ironclad evidence
to present before the Father that says his people must go
free. They must be given eternal life.
They cannot be damned for their sin. And the evidence is his
sacrifice and his death as their substitute. See, our advocate
pleads his obedience as the innocence of his people. Our righteousness
is His obedience, not our obedience. He pleads His obedience as the
innocence of His people. He pleads His blood as the reason
the sin of His people must be forgiven. He pleads His death
as the reason His people must live. And the judge of all the
earth sees all the evidence, all the evidence is presented.
He stamps that gavel and says, not guilty. Every time he says,
not guilty. And again, that's so glorious.
That's so astounding that the judge of all the earth would
call somebody like you and me not guilty. That's so astounding. God's going to make sure His
people hear about it. In every generation, they're
going to hear about it, and they're going to be constantly reminded
of it. Constantly reminded by the preaching of Christ. Now,
aren't we thankful to have this memorial? There's not a memorial
in every place, is there? but there is not in this city,
in this place. We have this memorial to be reminded, Christ our sacrifice,
Christ our substitute. And the psalmist says that the
Lord will repent himself. He will not condemn his people,
not just because he feels sorry for them, not because he thinks
they're cute. He will repent himself and not condemn his people
because justice has been satisfied. The word repent that's used here
doesn't mean the way we normally think of the word. Normally we
think it means to turn or to change. This word means to be
comforted. It means to be satisfied. The
Father is satisfied. His heart is comforted. His heart
is not offended. His holy perfect heart is not
offended, it's comforted. Because His people have been
redeemed in justice. Their sin has been put away so
even the all-seeing eye of God cannot see it anymore. because
the blood of Christ made it to not exist. So there's no reason
that the father wouldn't repent himself. There's no reason that
he would condemn his elect. Justice has been satisfied by
the death of our substitute. And God's people, God's servants,
they're all sinful men and women. Yet, they're all accepted for
Christ's sake. For Christ's sake. I wish we'd
get that through our head. It's for Christ's sake. It's
for not what we've done good, It's for whom Christ is. What
Christ has done well. We're accepted for Christ's sake.
We're not condemned because our substitute was condemned for
us. And his death satisfied justice for us. This flesh can never believe
it, can it? This flesh can never love it.
Now the new man does, but the flesh can't. Well, thank God
he established a memorial to tell his people and to remind
his people. constantly remind them about
his work of redemption that brings him so much glory and so much
fame. Now I warn you, don't ever be
taken in by a false memorial, by a false gospel that's raised
to a false God. Only the Lord Jehovah deserves
such a memorial. Only the Lord Jehovah deserves
to be preached about Only the Lord Jehovah deserves to be believed
because only the Lord, Jehovah, God our Savior, only He can accomplish
this work of redemption that deserves so much glory and so
much fame. Don't be taken in by a false
one because they're there. Look at verse 15. The idols of
the heathen are silver and gold. The work of men's hands. They
have mouths but they speak not. Eyes have they but they see not.
They have ears but they hear not. Neither is there any breath
in their mouths They that make them are like unto them. So is
everyone that trusteth in them. Now men worship idols because
that's all our nature can do. Men worship an idol that they
make up. They think this is what God must be like. But that idol
can never redeem. Idols are made of silver and
gold. Now that's the most precious metals that we can have. If we're going to make a god,
he's going to look good, isn't he? Silver and gold. But that
idol can't redeem. I don't care how many necklaces,
how many pearls, how much silver and gold she put on him. That
idol can never redeem anybody because we're not redeemed with
corruptible things as silver and gold. We're redeemed by the
precious blood of Christ. And an idol, no matter how much
silver and gold he has, can never put away sin because he has no
blood to atone for sin. Idols have mouths, but they speak
not. They got no mouth but your mouth. An idol depends upon you
to reach the ears of people, but not the Lord Jehovah. No,
He speaks through His Word. He speaks through His servant
preaching His Word, and when God speaks, when God the Holy
Spirit speaks to the hearts of God's people, they hear and they
believe. They may hear a preacher hundreds
and thousands of times, and one day they hear. One day they believe. Maybe, maybe they spent a long
time trying to believe and they couldn't. They couldn't make
themselves believe. And one day they find themselves believing
and they can't not believe. What happened? God spoke and
they heard and they believed and they can't not believe ever
again. An idol can't do that, can they? Idols have eyes but
they don't see. An idol could see the need for
salvation of sinners But that idol cannot see a way to accomplish
that salvation and justice. An idol can see people, but yet
he can't see them. There are people that idol cannot
save because they won't let him do it. They refuse to believe
him. They refuse to accept him. He can't see people and redeem
them. But not our God. No, the Lord Jehovah. Not only
does he see the need for redemption, he sees the way to provide it.
Not only does He see a ransom that will redeem His people,
He provides a ransom for His people. And He always sees them. Always. And this is so comforting. Even from before time began.
When only God existed. Even angels weren't created.
When only God existed, even then God saw His people. And you know
where He saw them? In His Son. He's always seen
His people. in His Son. And in the course
of human time, He sees them. He knows where they're at. He
sees their need. So He knows how to save them.
He knows how to comfort them. He knows how to deliver them.
He sees their need, and He'll see to it. He'll see to it. He'll see to their every need.
Idols have ears, but they can't hear. They may not. They may
not be able to hear the cry of poor sinners. Just like that
day on Mount Carmel. Remember Elijah? Those fellows
were crying out to their idol and Elijah mocked them and said,
cry louder. Maybe he's asleep. Maybe he's
taking a nap. Maybe he's on a trip. He may have gone somewhere. He
never could hear them, could he? But the Lord Jehovah has
an ear. And He gave us this assuring
word, my ear is not heavy that it cannot hear. He always hears
the weakest cry of a poor sinner. And I tell you and me tonight,
Let's cry to Him. You cry to God. Cry to the Lord
for forgiveness. Cry to Him for mercy and grace
to help. He'll hear. He'll hear. And idols
are dead. You know, they got eyes and they
can't see. They got mouths, they can't speak. They got ears, but
they can't hear because they're dead. They don't have any life
in them. And they can't give anybody any life either. Now,
the only reason somebody believes on such an idol, such a lifeless
powerless God who cannot save them unless they do their part.
You know why? The only reason, there's just one reason some
might believe on a God like that. They're dead too. They can't
do anything different. They're dead. God hasn't given
them life yet. And if He's going to give them
life, I'll tell you how He's going to do it. Through this memorial. Through
the preaching of Christ that God's given to us. And you know,
normally, We build memorials to dead people, don't we? You're
not going to put somebody, you know, you're not going to build a memorial
to their dead. You're not going to put them in the Hall of Fame
or something, you know, to their dead. But God's memorial, God's preaching
of Christ is a memorial of the living Savior. And so whoever
you are, wherever it is you fit into the house of God, you praise
Him. Look at what the psalmist says, verse 19. Bless the Lord,
O house of Israel. All of you. Bless the Lord, O
house of Aaron. Bless the Lord, O house of Levi.
Ye that fear the Lord, bless the Lord. Blessed be the Lord
out of Zion, which dwelleth at Jerusalem. Praise ye the Lord. I got done preparing that message
Tuesday night, and I thought, we're going to have the Lord's
table. So I thought, what is a better memorial, a better way
for us to remember the sacrifice of our Lord that has redeemed
His people from their sins, except the way that the Lord gave us
to remember Him. in remembrance of me. That's
what I want us to do tonight. To do this as a memorial, remembering
Christ our Savior. Aren't you thankful God's given
us a way to be reminded, to be reminded of His sacrifice. Now
if you remember, turn this over where the wine's on the bottom
and peel off that top and you get to the bread. As you're doing that, let me
read to us Paul's instruction to us here from 1 Corinthians
chapter 11. Paul says, for I have received of the Lord that which
also I delivered unto you, that the Lord Jesus, the same night
in which he was betrayed, took bread. And when he had given
thanks, he break it. He said, take, eat. This is my
body which is broken for you. This do in remembrance of me. Let's bow in prayer. Our Father, oh, how we thank
you for this memorial. the gospel of our Lord Jesus
Christ, the declaration of his sacrifice, his sacrifice that
fully put away the sin of his people. How we thank you that
he willingly gave his precious body to be broken, to be crushed
under the sword of God's justice, that he might put away the sin
of his people. Father, how we thank you that
you've given us this way to remember you. to remember the sacrifice
of our Lord. And as we take this bread, we
take it in faith, confidence in our Lord Jesus Christ, that
by his sacrifice, that's the only way my sin could be put
away. And we thank you. We thank you
for this memorial and we pray you'd make it famous in our day.
Cause us to believe it and to rest in our Lord Jesus Christ.
It's in his precious name we pray. Amen. You turn that over, peel that
off carefully. get to the wine. The apostle
went on in 1 Corinthians 11. He says, after the same manner
also he took the cup when he had supped, saying, this cup
is the New Testament in my blood. This do ye as often as you drink
it in remembrance of me. For as often as ye eat this bread
and drink this cup, you do show the Lord's death till he come. Wayne, would you give thanks
for the blood? to bring this legislation to a more reasonable process.
It's not desacrificing. It's actually prosecuting. Thank you for your time. It's been a pleasure. Thank you. You know, it's always a special time to
preach the gospel, to hear again of our Lord's grace and mercy. But this way that the Lord's
given us is a very special memorial, isn't it, to remember his sacrifice.
And I pray that the Lord bless his word to your hearts. All
right, you're dismissed.