Let's take our Bibles now and
turn to Matthew 26. Matthew chapter 26. The lesson this morning is the Lord,
our Passover. Matthew 26 beginning with verse
17. Now the first day of the feast
of unleavened bread The disciples came to Jesus saying unto Him,
whence wilt thou that we prepare for thee to eat the Passover? Now that's a sentence we need
to think about a lot. They're going to prepare for
Him the Passover who was the Passover. They're going to prepare
for Him the supper who is the supper. And I looked at that
and I thought how condescending our Lord is in dealing with us
in our ignorance of Him and His Word. And He said this, verse
18, Go into the city to such and such a man, and say unto
him, The Master saith, My time is at hand. I will keep the Passover
at thy house with my disciples." My time. Not peace time, not
holy day time. My time. This is my time, he
said. You tell him that, and he'll
show you where the room is and make all things ready. And the
disciples, verse 19, did as Jesus had appointed them, and they
made ready the Passover. Now when the evening was come,
he sat down with the twelve. And as they did eat, he said,
Verily I say unto you, that one of you shall betray me. And they
were exceedingly sorrowful, and began every one of them to say
unto him, Lord, is it I? And he answered and said, He
that dippeth his hand with me in the dish, the same shall betray
me. And the Son of Man goeth as it
is written of Him, but woe unto that man by whom the Son of Man
is betrayed. It had been good for that man
if he had not been born. Then Judas, which betrayed him,
answered and said, Master, is it I? And he said unto him, Thou
hast said. And as they were eating, Jesus
took bread and blessed it and break it, and gave it to the
disciples and said, take, eat, this is my body. And he took
the cup and he gave thanks and he gave it to them saying, drink
ye all of it, for this is my blood of the New Testament, which
is shed for many for the remission of sins. 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 Kingdom."
When they had sung a hymn, they went out into the Mount of Olives. Now, the Lord Jesus Christ is
the fulfillment of the whole of the ceremonial law. To look
at the ceremonial law in any other light in any other fashion,
to study it, to look at it, to observe it in any other fashion
is blasphemy. It's a total denial of the person
and work of Jesus Christ. This was His time. This was the
time of reformation that He talked about over there in Hebrews 9.
He said these ordinances and these ceremonies were imposed
on them until the day of reformation. This was the day. This was His
time. all of its feast days and holy
days and sacrifices and buildings. He is the altar. We have an altar,
Paul said, whereof they that serve the tabernacle have no
right to eat. He is our altar. He is our holy
days and sacrifices and buildings. He is our altar and our priest.
He is the Lamb of God and the tabernacle in which it was offered.
And to continue in any of these practices is to deny that Jesus
is the Christ. What we have before us in these
several verses of Scripture is the fading away of the old, of
the old Passover. The fading away of the old Passover
in the light of Him of whom that Passover testified. One writer
said, the Passover melted into the Lord's supper. as the stars
vanish away as the morning sun dawns. They disappear. That old Passover and that old
lamb disappeared. It melted right into the Lord's
table as He fulfilled these things. Peter said this, talking about
those Old Testament prophets and their testimony, he said,
we have also A more sure word of prophecy, whereunto you do
well that you take heed as unto a light that shineth in a dark
place until the day dawn. Until the day dawn and the day
star arise in your heart. When it does, these old ceremonies
will just fade away. They just disappear like the
stars do in the morning. The sun comes out and you see
the glory of the sun and in the glory of the sun, these old things
just fade away. They disappear. And you stand
out here and you look around in the noonday sun and you can't
find a star. That's what Peter's talking about.
And this ordinance which is still practiced by the church is given
by our Lord and it's given in great simplicity. There's nothing
of ceremonial pageantry in the Lord's Supper. And our Lord knew
all things and He knew what lay ahead. He knew of his wicked
betrayal and he spoke here about it. One of you is going to betray
me. Immediately they were all broken
hearted. He knew of his wicked betrayal.
He knew of the ungodly contempt of the Pharisaical priesthood.
He knew of Satan's presence and the unholy Romans into whose
hands he must be gifted. He knew the turmoil that would
take place in the hearts of his disciples, of their desertion. Peter said,
though they all leave you, I won't. Yeah, he said, you will. You
will. I don't know that John said it,
but John thought it. And even John, who laid his head
on his breast, deserted him. all the turmoil that would take
place in the hearts of His disciples, confusion and ignorance. And
that time was near. And so He chose this quiet evening
before the fulfillment of these things took place to give His
disciples the Lord's Supper. And He instituted it on that
evening. Now notice how casually He brings
into fulfillment one of the most solemn of the Old Testament ceremonies,
the Passover. Now watch this. Verse 26, As
they were eating. Now they weren't just eating
supper. This was the evening of the Passover. They were eating
the Passover supper. That's what's significant here.
And He sat down with them to eat and He didn't say anything.
And as they were eating, as they were eating, Jesus took bread. What bread? The unleavened bread
of the Passover. He took that bread, and He broke
it, and He said, take, eat. This is My body. This is My body. This was the Passover bread,
the unleavened bread, which stood for the sinless, uncorrupted,
unblemished Lamb of God. Now, he did not say, this shall
be turned into my body. That's not what he says here.
This is what a lot of folks still practice and believe today. Nowhere
in the Bible is it even hinted at that believers should literally
eat the body of Christ. Even if that bread could be turned
into His body, it wouldn't do you any good. You remember over
in John chapter 6? That's what caused the multitude
of His disciples to quit following Him. He said, My blood is drink
indeed, and My body is meat indeed. And except you eat the flesh
of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you'll have no life in
you. And they said, This is a hard saying. And many of them got
up and packed up and left. Said, He's a madman. He's crazy.
Talking about cannibalism. And He said, My words are spirit.
He said, The flesh doesn't profit you anything. A fleshly eating
of my body wouldn't profit you anything. He said, my words are
spirit. They are to be spiritually understood. The words I speak unto you, they
are spirit and they are life. And here in Matthew 26, our Lord
is telling His disciples who knew what they were eating. They
knew they were eating the Passover supper. and that it was commanded to
be eaten under the law of God. And our Lord simply tells them
what it means. This bread is my body. It is my body. Well, you say
that statement says that it is His body. Well, let me ask you
something. And I could go through and take
a half hour and show you things in the Scripture. Back in the
Old Testament, I believe it was Joseph who was interpreting the
dream of Pharaoh. There were seven kinds involved
in that dream. I think I've got the right reference. And he said these seven kinds
are seven years. Did he mean that those cattle
in that dream were actually seven years or did he mean these represent
seven years? And then John the Baptist who
stood there that day and he saw the Lord coming down that path
And he said, Behold the Lamb of God. Did he actually see a
lamb coming down the path? Or is he saying this is Him who
represents the lamb? All the lambs. You see what I'm
saying? The Scriptures often use that
phrase. This. And so when he's talking
about this is my body, he's not saying this is literally my body. He said this is representative
of my body. Typically. And representative. This unleavened bread instituted
on the night before Israel's great deliverance points to my
body which shall be sacrificed unto you, and this is the night
before your deliverance. Luther, Martin Luther, he taught
that the bread and the wine mystically and spiritually transformed itself
into the body and blood of Christ so that those elements themselves
become conduits of grace and mercy. And there's a lot of other
pagan ideas and superstitions attached to the elements of the
Lord's Supper. Some even go so far as to burying
the remainder. The church that I was raised
in did that. They'd have the Lord's table and whatever was
left over, you didn't go throw it in the garbage can because
It was sacred. It had already been consecrated
and you couldn't use it again. So they would go dig a hole somewhere
and bury it. And dispose of it. All of these
things. These are just pagan superstitions
and traditions of men. They have nothing to do with
the Lord's table. The Lord's table was so simple.
They were sitting there celebrating and eating the Passover feast. And He took that bread, which
was a picture of His body that He would sacrifice for them,
and He said, take and eat. This is My body. This is what
this is talking about. And all that our Lord pointed
out when He instituted this blessed ordinance is that this unleavened
bread which they were eating spoke of His body, which would
be broken of them. And then in verse 27, He took
the cup. And he gave thanks, and he gave
it to them, saying, Drink ye all of it, for this is my blood
of the New Testament, which is shed for many for the remission
of sins. And again, let me be clear concerning
the elements of the supper. This cup was a cup of wine. It was a cup of wine. It was
not grape juice, or it wasn't Kool-Aid. It was wine. And the
bread was unleavened bread. It wasn't cookies. And it wasn't
soda crackers. It wasn't cake. It was unleavened bread. And
these elements did not change in their nature. They simply
represented in figure his body and blood. Brother Don made this
comment in his commentary on Matthew. He said, all you have
to do to know it's wine is taste it. Taste it. It's not somebody's
body. It's not somebody's blood. It's
wine. And that bread, all you have
to do is taste it. And you know it's bread. It's
not somebody's body. Matthew 26, verse 28. In this verse, the Lord tells
us four things about His blood that this wine represents. First
of all, He says it's My blood. It's my blood. Why is that important? Why couldn't it be? If this is
just a legal transfer, why couldn't it just continue on to be the
blood of a lamb or a blood of a goat, a blood of a bullet? Why must it be his blood? This
is my blood, he said. Well, this is important because
his blood was like no other blood. Listen to this, Acts 20, verse
28. He said, Take heed, therefore,
unto yourselves and to all the flock, over the which the Holy
Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which
He hath purchased with His own blood. You say, God can't believe. No, but the God-man can. The
God-man can. He said, this is my blood. And
it's the deity of Christ that gives infinite worth to the blood
of Christ. It's what's in His blood apart
from all other blood. This is the blood of the God-man. The God-man. And this blood has
infinite worth. It's my blood. And then secondly,
he said, it is my blood, referring that himself is Christ. He's
declaring here that I am the Christ. My blood. There was only one
who could come and fulfill those things, and that's the Christ
set forth in the Old Testament Scripture. When he said this
is my blood, he's declaring himself to be the Christ. If He is not
the Christ, then this ordinance is a violation of the law, and
to practice it would be idolatry. It's my blood. And then secondly,
He calls His blood the blood of the New Testament. The blood
of the New Testament. Now the New Testament is not
new in its origin. It is the everlasting covenant
of grace. In Hebrews chapter 13, verse
20, Paul said, Now the God of peace that brought again from
the dead our Lord Jesus Christ, that great Shepherd of the sheep,
through the blood of the everlasting covenant. This new covenant,
it's not new in its origin, it was from everlasting, but it's
new in its manifestation. That first covenant, that covenant
of works, That was all laid down, been laid down since Adam's fall,
this covenant of works. And it was pronounced, very pronounced
and manifested under the law of Moses. But all through that
law and all through the prophets and even in the old patriarchs
and as far back as Adam, they pointed forward to that day,
forward to that Christ who would come and fulfill that everlasting
covenant. And if you don't believe that
covenant is a part of the Old Testament, you need to read the
last words that David said. He said, that's all my salvation
and all my desire. The New Testament is the Old
Testament fulfilled and revealed. And according to Hebrews 9.15,
our Lord is the mediator of the New Testament, being come a high
priest of good things to come and by a greater and more perfect
tabernacle, not made by the blood of animal sacrifices, but by
His own blood. And He entered in once into the
holy place and obtained eternal redemption for us. His blood
is the blood of the New Testament. And the blood shed by our surety
and high priest which both sanctified us and perfected us forever is
what he tells us in Hebrews 10, I think it's verse 10 and verse
14. It's covenant blood. And then
thirdly, he tells us this. This covenant blood, he said,
was shed for many. Now there's two things I want
you to see here. First of all, that his blood
was not poured out for a trifle. He said, many. Now you can do
whatever you want to do with that word. Many means many. Just like made means made. It was shed for many. And this
many, he says in Revelation 7, is a great multitude which no
man can number. When He says many, He means many. Many. A number which no man can
number of all nations and all kindreds and people and tongue.
I tell you, we get the idea in our day that there are only going
to be a handful in glory. But everywhere I read about it
in the Bible, He talks about many. Many. And if His blood
was shed for many, the many in that day will stand before His
throne and sing His praise. And then the second thing I want
you to see here is this word many is used to restrict those
for whom it was shed. It was not shed for all men,
it was shed for many. If Christ died for all men and
some men wind up in hell, then His blood was meaningless and
His sacrifice was in vain. It didn't accomplish anything.
It didn't put anything away. He bore it, but it didn't have
any value. He offered it to God, but God
wouldn't accept it. And that can't be. That's totally
contrary to the Scriptures. And it's contrary to the character
of God. And if Christ died for all men, and all men are not
saved, then the Scriptures are not true, and it makes God a
liar. When our Lord came into this
world, It was said to his mother, his
name shall be called Jesus, for he shall save his people from
their sin. Do you see that? That makes God a liar. And there are some things that
just cannot be, and that's one of them. He said, I give unto them eternal
life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them
out of My hand. And My Father which gave them
Me, who is going to pluck them out of His hand? Who is going
to separate you, He tells us in Romans 8, from the love of
God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord? Nothing. He gives five
or six verses of things there and tells us nothing can separate
us. from the love of God which is
in Christ. And then he tells us this, Christ
shall not fail. And he didn't. He didn't. Our glorious high priest has
the names of his people upon his shoulders and over his heart
to bear them up before the Lord. And his blood was so effective
that having made only one offering for sins forever, it enabled
him to sat down at the right hand of God expecting to his
enemies be made his footstool. And then fourthly, here's the
fourth thing he tells us about his blood. He said his blood
was shed for the remission of sins. Now, according to the dictionary,
and I was kind of surprised when I looked this up. I like to look
words up occasionally to see what they mean, see what the
common usage of the word means. And according to the dictionary,
to remit is to cancel a penalty or a punishment and to restore
it to its original condition. That's what it means, to remit.
And remittance is the result or the credit due for him that
was remitted. Does that make sense? They actually
in the dictionary said it's a credit being sent based on something
remitted. It's the credit of it. And without
the shedding of blood, he tells us in Hebrews chapter 9, his
blood, that covenant blood, that particular blood, that blood
of deity and manhood in one person, without the shedding of blood,
there is no remission. No remission. The death of Christ
is our substitute, and the shedding of His blood, which testifies
of that death, was shed for God's elect to take away their sins. To take away their sins. God
punished my Savior, my substitute, who bore my sins in His own body
on the tree. He saw me in Him. He looked on
my Savior, and He saw me in Him. And He condemned me in Him. And
He despised me in Him. And He poured out His holy vengeance
on me in Him. Can you see that? They fussing
and arguing over this thing of Christ being made sin. What does
that mean? That means He was made me before
God. He stood as me before the Holy
God. And when God looked on Him, He
saw me. And He saw me as I am. The death of Christ as our substitute
is the very heart of reconciliation. Be ye reconciled to God, Paul
said, for or because He hath made Him to be sin for us who
knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God
in Him. That's the heart of reconciliation.
If you can't be reconciled by the death of Christ, by the blood
of Christ, you can't be reconciled. You see that? That's why I keep
pointing people to Christ. Pointing them to Christ. All
this other stuff is nonsense. It's nonsense. Nothing. God has nothing for
the sinner outside of Christ. Nothing but condemnation. But he has everything for the
sinner in Christ. Everything. God help us to see
that. Thank you.