Turn back to Matthew 26. We have now come to the place where the Old Covenant must give way to the new covenant, the covenant of grace, the covenant
that allowed sinners like you and me into glory. We have come to the end of the blood of bulls and goats. They must now also give way to
the blood, the precious blood of the Lamb of God. Can you imagine
how many lambs were slain for more than 2,000 years? It was
2,000 years from Moses to Christ. That's when the priesthood and
the law and all that was given at that time. But there was lamb
slain before that. But can you imagine all the bulls
and goats that were slain over the years? And now they've come to an end
because the blood of the Son of God is about to be shed. The old priesthood The old priesthood must now give
way to the great high priest of God. What we have before us,
and oh I would that God would enable us to enter into this
tonight, because what we have before us is like the light of
a candle giving way to the light of the sun. You know, in the mornings, when
the sun shines so bright, you can't see all those stars, can
you? They're there. At nighttime, you can go out
and you can see the stars and the moon, but you cannot see
that when the glory of the sun shines so bright at noonday. And here, here, the glory of
the sun is going to put out the candle of all the shadows and
the types. Now last week we ended in verse
13. We ended with a woman being remembered
for her act of doing something good on the Lord Jesus Christ. He said in verse 13, Verily I
say unto you, wheresoever this gospel shall be preached in the
whole world, there shall also this that this woman has done
to be told for a memorial of her. And then the next verse,
the next verse, we start with a person who will always be known as being
a traitor, being an infamous person. We go from a kind act
of treason is what we go from. You know, if you really want
to call somebody a name that just gets to them, if you want
to stick somebody with being a traitor or an evil person,
you call them Judas Iscariot. I saw this on a movie some time
ago. A guy turned around and said,
you Judas Iscariot. It was not a religious movie
either. I thought even Hollywood knows that this was the greatest
traitor of all time. Judas Iscariot. And here he goes to the chief
priest. They did not come to him. See,
they had gathered in the chief priest's palace, and they were
trying to figure out how they might get at him, how they might
take Christ. And here Judas, he goes to them.
And when they see him walk in, You know they had to be going,
what's he doing here? What's he doing here? And I have
no doubt they were probably shocked that one so close to the Lord
would betray Him. You know they had to be shocked.
I think one of the frightening things about this is how high
a person, how high a rank a person can hold in the church and yet
be a son of perdition. Judas is scarier. I believe,
no doubt, this is why Peter said, examine yourselves, whether you
be in the faith. Prove your own selves. Know you
not how that Jesus Christ dwells in you? Never, never assume anything,
especially the eternal destiny. of your soul. Now, he goes into
the high priest or the chief priest and he says, what will
you give me? I'm in a bartering mood today. What will you give me? Ready
to sell out his master for money. Now, the Scripture says the love
of money is the root of all evil. Not having it, it's the love
of it. Some don't have it and love it. Some have it and they
don't love it. It's not the having of money.
It's the love of it. Love of it. And they said they
covenanted. They covenanted with him for
30 pieces of silver. You know what that is? The price
of a slave. 30 pieces of silver. was the price of a slave. Spurgeon
said this, he has been betrayed for a whole lot less since. He's
been betrayed for a whole lot less. Thirty pieces of silver
is not much. It's the price of a slave. But
he's been betrayed for a whole lot less. And from that time
forth, Judas sought opportunity to betray him. to the tree. And then we see in verse 17,
we see how the Lord has power over all things. He says, Now
the first day of the feast of unleavened bread, the disciples
came to Jesus, saying unto Him, Where wilt thou that we prepare
for thee to eat the Passover? Where are we going to eat the
Passover? And He said, Now you go into a city. This is his omniscience. You go into a city and you're
going to find such a man. And as I said in another place,
it says he'll be bearing a pitcher of water. And you say to him,
the master, that's all you have to say. You just say the master.
You don't have to talk him into it. You don't have to pay him
for it. You just say the master. The master saith, now listen,
My time is at hand. And he's not talking about time
to have this supper. He's saying it's my time to be
crucified. You tell him my time's at hand.
My time to die is at hand. And I will keep the Passover
at thy house. What an honor. What an honor. With my disciples. And then the
disciples did as Jesus had appointed them. They were obedient servants.
They made ready the Passover. As I said, they had gone out
and bought a lamb and killed it and fixed it and then everything
that was needed, everything that was commanded and needed was
there and was ready. Now when the evening was come,
he sat down with the twelve, all of them, all twelve of them,
even Judas, sitting down there. And here's a sad revelation.
And as they did eat, they sat down to eat. And the Lord sat
down with His disciples to eat the Passover. And as they ate,
He revealed that there is a traitor. He said there is a traitor among
the twelve. You know, before this, our Lord
had said The Son of Man shall be betrayed into the hands of
sinners." To be crucified. He told them that. But now, now
He tells them that one of the traitors, or that one who will
betray Him, is one of them. Can you imagine that? Can you imagine that? Now you
can see why it says in verse 22, they were exceeding Sorrowful. If I stood here tonight with
the knowledge and knowing that one of you would deny the gospel,
leave the gospel, despise Christ, wouldn't that just be shocking? Wouldn't that be shocking? And they were exceeding sorrowful.
What a bombshell He dropped on them at the table. Back in Exodus chapter 12, I
read this to you last week. Remember this. They were to eat
the Passover with bitter herbs. And I thought this when I read
that. Here is a bitter herb. Here is a bitter herb. One of
you shall betray me. And they began to say, one by
one, Is it I? Is it I? This shows a true work
of grace. I believe this shows a true work
of grace when you consider yourself first. They did not say it's
Judas. I bet you it's Judas or Peter. And Peter did deny him later. They said, is it I? One by one. We should always, and I think
this is so important. And I believe this is what a
child of God does. We should always apply the message
to ourselves first. We should always apply it to
ourselves first. Now, someone's going to say,
Judas said it. Judas also said it. Well, he
said it. And by the way I read this, he
said it last. He was the last to say it. And
I believe Judas knew. He knew he was the one. He had
just gone to the chief priest and said, what are you giving
me for him? And I'll deliver him to you. He knew it. There's
no conviction of sin. He knew his end. And I tell you
what, I believe he knew the Lord knew his end. Or at least he
was very suspicious of it. Because the Lord said to him,
when he said, Is it I? The Lord said, Thou hast said,
or Thou hast rightly said. You're right, Judas. I really
don't believe he said it loud enough for all of them there
to hear, because I believe it would have been just a shock,
and there would have been some things said. But he said, Thou
hast said. Thou hast said. You have rightly
said. You're the one. So he knew it,
and he knew the Lord knew it. Now we come to verse 25. And Judas, which betrayed him,
answered and said, Master, is it I? He said unto him, Thou
hast said. And as they were eating, all of them, all twelve of them,
Judas sitting there with them, the
son of perdition, sitting there with them. partaking of this. The Lord didn't run him off.
You know, people try to put a fence around this table. The Lord didn't even do that.
Peter is going to deny the Lord here shortly, and he didn't run
Peter off. All of them are going to be scattered
and leave our Lord, but he did not run one of them off. That's why Paul said over in
Corinthians, examine yourselves. I'm not going to stay here and
say, well, this one should or this one shouldn't. No, you discern
the Lord's body. You discern the broken bread
and the wine. You discern it. That's for you. That's between you and the Lord.
That's what it's for. Now here, our Lord is going to
establish what we are doing tonight. It's going to be established
as a memorial until He comes. Now if you remember, the Passover
was established, what they are doing right now, was established
back in Exodus chapter 12, when God was going to bring them out
of Egypt. When you read through the Old
Testament, I don't know how many times you read where the Lord
brought them out of Egypt with a great hand. Constantly saying
that when the Lord brought them out of Egypt. It's just all through
the Old Testament. And they would commemorate this
every year by the Passover. They would keep the Passover.
And the fathers would teach their children the purpose for the
Passover. Remembering how the Lord brought
them out of Egypt with a strong hand. But I want to tell you
tonight, we are not remembering an event. We are remembering
a person who lived and died for us and rose again and seated
at God's right hand. That's what we are doing tonight.
We are remembering a person, the Lord Jesus Christ. And how
sad it is that we have to be told to remember. But we do. We do. We need to be told that. Now it says here in verse 26,
And as they were eating, Jesus took the bread. And the first
thing he did was he blessed it. He blessed it. He gave thanks
to the Heavenly Father for the bread. Not only the nourishment
of it, but for what it signified. He gave thanks for what it signified. His broken body. And no doubt
in his giving of thanks and his prayer, He asked the Father that
they might understand what this means. I don't believe that they
knew at that time exactly what they were doing. No, they didn't.
I know they didn't. They did not know what was really going
on. But they did later. They did later. I believe He asked that they
might understand it and that they would be given a spiritual
understanding. That they might be nourished
by this every time we do this, we remember Him. That's all it
is too, a memorial. There's nothing saving in it.
It's a memorial. Scripture says the Son of God
hath come and given us an understanding. An understanding of what we're
doing here tonight. An understanding of the gospel. Do you understand
how God saves sinners? If you do, you have discerned
the Lord's body. You have discerned what this
is tonight. You have discerned His broken body and shed blood.
You've discerned it. God's given you a discernment
of it. And it says He break it. He break it. He blessed it. And then He break it. Signifying
the breaking of the true bread from heaven. He said in one place
in the Gospel of John, I am the true bread from heaven. His body was broken. It was broken
for His people. Sacrificed for His people. And after He broke it, He gave
it to His, listen, His disciples, His followers, those who believed
on Him. That's who this is for. It's
for everyone that believes the gospel. I preached at a place years ago,
years ago, up in West Virginia. They wanted to talk to me about
being the pastor. And they practiced closed communion. And they asked me what I thought
about it. And I didn't know that much.
I was 27, 28 years old. I said, well, let me, I said,
let me understand what you're saying here. I said, if my pastor,
Henry Mahan, I said, if he comes here and I have him to preach here
and he preaches to us and we have the communion, are you asking
me to tell him that he can't take it? I said, I can't do that. I cannot do that. That I would
ask a man to stand in the pulpit, preach the gospel to me, and
then tell him, you're not a part of this group, you can't take
it. If you are a part of the body of Christ, take it. That's who it's for. It's for
His disciples. You know what? And His disciples
were nothing but sinners saved by grace, fishermen, unlearned,
ignorant men. They weren't scholars. They were
fishermen called by the grace of God. If you notice, He took that loaf
of bread. There was not twelve loaves of bread there. There
was one. One. Christ made one offering
for sin. One body. A body hath thou prepared
me. And He offered that one body.
That one body was broken. All of us, all of us feast on
the same Christ. The same One. And then, listen,
He gave. Boy, did He ever. Did He ever. He gave. He gave Himself to be sacrificed
for our sins. that we might eat of Him and
live. He gave. He gave to them. And He gave
it, it says, to His disciples. That's who He... He died for
His elect. He died for His elect. And that's who it's given to.
This is for them that believe. If you believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ, if He's your all in all, if He's your hope, if He's your
righteousness, If He's everything to you, eat and drink. Because that's what it says here.
Take. Eat. He gave. I want you to get this
now. He gave to them. And then He
says to them, you take it. This is faith. You know, faith
is the gift of God. And yet, it's my faith. There are just so many things
we can't figure out, can we? or explain. I'm not going to
try to explain it no more than I'm going to try to explain human
responsibility and divine sovereignty. It's just so. He gave, and then
he said to them, take. Faith. That's faith. Take. Eat. This is my body. No one is force-fed
Christ. I have been in services years
ago When people would go back and they would talk to you and
talk to you and talk to you, try to get you to come to the
front and repent, we don't force-feed Christ to anyone. He gave and
He says take. Take. You know what to take is? It's to receive Him. It's to
receive Him. It's that simple. If you notice
here how simple this whole thing is, there's no ceremonies going
on. There's no pageantry. It's so
simple. He takes the bread, breaks it,
gave to him, said take it, eat it. How simple. How simple. It's to receive Christ. That's
what it is to take. And he says eat. Eat. He didn't
say just look at it. Lay this on your plate. Take
this and lay this on your plate and look at it and contemplate
it. Think about it. No, he said,
you take it and eat it. But I don't understand all that.
That's not what he said. That's not what he said. He said,
take and eat. Just like he said, believe on
the Lord Jesus Christ and be baptized. You believe on Christ,
be baptized. He didn't say, well, let me study
this a while. No, that's not faith. That's
human reasoning. That's human logic. And human
logic will lead you off into error. It will lead you off into
worse. He said, take and eat. Bread
on the plate will not nourish my body. You can have the best
dish in the world sitting in front of you. If you never eat
it, you'll starve to death. Only Christ in you Only Christ eaten by faith will
nourish your soul. When one eats bread, he consumes
the bread and it goes right into the very center of his bowels. He consumes that bread. You know,
I ate before I came over here. I took that food and I just ate
it. And it's inside me. It's in me. That's what he's saying here.
When we, by faith, eat Christ, we feed on Christ, by faith we
take Him into our souls. We receive Him into our very
being. We receive Him into our thoughts.
We receive Him into our hearts. That's what it is. Listen, it
becomes part of me. What I ate for dinner before
coming over here becomes part of me. I become part of it. Somehow we're just, the Lord
said we're one. I and them, they and me, thou
and me, we're one. And listen, eating is the only
way to alleviate hunger pains. I'm hungry. I'm hungry. Well, how do you
alleviate that? By eating. If the soul is hungry, hungry
after Christ, after righteousness, Blessed are those who hunger
and thirst after righteousness. How do you satisfy that hunger
and that thirst? You eat and you feed. You feed on Christ. You feed
on Him. That's how. The only way to alleviate
spiritual hunger pains is to feed on the Lord Jesus Christ.
And He says, this is My body. Now listen, that bread on that
table is not the body of Christ. It is a representation of the
body of Christ and it does not in no way, shape or form turn
into the body of Christ. When you eat that, it will be
what it is. This is my body. This represents
my body which is broken for you. You know, he said over in the
Gospel of John, one place, except you eat my flesh and drink my
blood, you have no life in you. And they were offended. I said,
well, you think we are a bunch of cannibals? I know that's what
they thought. He was talking about faith. He
was talking about eating his body and drinking his blood by
faith. And this bread, this bread represents
the body of Christ, which is broken for many. The bread and
the wine do not turn into the body and blood of Christ. They
just represent it. That's all. Now, after taking
the bread, he took the cup. You see, the bread has to be
broken first. The body has to be broken first
to get the blood out of it. His body has got to be broken
first. Pierced. Nailed. His back whipped. in order to get the fruit of
the vine out of it. He said, I'm the vine. Well,
here's the fruit of it. His blood. And the wine represents
His blood. It represents the blood that
cleanses us from all sin. How can I be cleansed from my
sins? Blood. His blood. Repentance does not cleanse me
of my sins. Repentance is the gift of God,
but it doesn't cleanse me of it. The one thing that cleanses
us from all sin is the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's
the blood that cleanses us from all sins. And then He gave it
to them. He gave them the bread, the broken
bread. He said, take, eat. And now He
gives them the wine as He did the bread. And this wine, as
I said, represents His blood, which is the atonement for our
souls. And then he says to them, drink all of it. You see, faith
receives the whole Christ. Drink ye all of it. This is not
a taste test. Some of you may have, I've never
gone to these, some of these wineries have taste testing.
You know, you can go and do a taste test. This is not a taste test.
You drink all of it. All of it. We are to consume
all of the Lord Jesus Christ by faith. His body was sacrificed
for us. His blood was shed for the atonement
of our sins. Drink all of it. Half of Christ,
half of gospel is no gospel at all, and half of Christ is no
Christ at all. It's all of it. He said, for this is my blood,
this represents my blood, human blood, pure blood, precious blood,
this represents my blood. And he says, this represents
my blood of the New Testament, the new covenant. You see, the
old covenant was ratified by the blood of bulls and goats.
This covenant, this covenant of grace is ratified by the blood
of the Son of God. This is the blood that ratifies
that new covenant. This wine, he says here, it represents
the blood that was shed, going to be shed, about to be shed
for many. Now listen, when Israel killed
the Passover lamb in Egypt, who was it for? It was for that little
nation. Now, it was for the Israelites.
And truly, the blood of Christ is for the true Israel of God,
which is all who believe. But at that time, it was shed
by the blood of bulls and goats. It was shed for that little nation
called Israel. But oh, how broad this one is.
Oh, how broad. It is shed for many. Many. Who are the many? The many that He represented.
That's what it's for. And it's shed for many for the
remission of sins. As I've said so many times, you've
got to know what sin is to appreciate this. You've got to know what
it is to really appreciate it. And then he says here in verse
29, But I say unto you, I will not drink henceforth of this
fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with
you in my Father's house. This is the last time that the
Passover and the way they kept it. Here's
why he's saying this is the last time you will ever do this again.
Because he put an end. He put an end to the old priesthood.
He put an end to that old Passover, those lambs and goats and the
priesthood and the temple. He put an end to it. He said,
the next time you and I sit down together, it will be in my Father's
kingdom. It will be in my Father's kingdom.
And when they had sung a hymn, they went out into the mouth
of Alice. We are to praise Him for all
that He's done for us in salvation. This is my body. which is broken
for you. This is my blood which is shed
for many for the remission of sins. Now you take it, you eat
it, and you drink all of it. Who's this for? It's for every sinner whose only
hope is Jesus Christ alone. If that describes you, if that
describes me, take it. Take it. All right, let's observe
the Lord's.