1 Corinthians chapter 11 and I
verse 23. 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 broke it and said, take, eat. This is my body, which
is broken for you. This do in remembrance of me. 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 oft as ye drink
it, in remembrance of me. For as oft as ye eat this bread
and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord's death till he come. The beauty of this ordinance
which our Lord has given us to observe is in the simplicity
of it. It consists of two simple elements,
bread and wine. We're told simply to eat the
bread and drink the wine. And we're told also what to do
on the inside while we're doing that on the outside. Remember. As often as you do this, eating
and drinking this bread and wine, remember me. And we're told to do all of this
for a reason. Why we do it, what's accomplished
by it, to show the Lord's death. Now we're always to expose the
error of our day as it becomes necessary to do so in order to
teach the scriptures. My primary business is not to
expose error. Some have made it theirs and
it's foolish. The list of heretics and heresy
is too long for me to take it up. I wouldn't have time to preach
the gospel. The gospel is not telling what
people shouldn't believe. It's just telling forth the truth
of Christ so that sinners might believe the truth of His person and His
work. But when error is so prominent
concerning certain things, it's clearly exposed in the Word of
God by those who preach the gospel and so We do that when it's necessary. And the best way to expose error
is to just herald the truth, tell forth the truth. And the
first truth I want to herald concerning this table is what
seems obvious. The table consists of simple
unleavened bread and wine. That's what it is. It's nothing
more, nothing less than bread and wine. There's no magical
transformation of these elements into some kind of a cannibalistic
freak show, nor is there any evidence that there ever was.
Some take the words when our Lord said in the text that we
read, this is my body, to mean literally that when the Lord
broke the bread that it changed into his actual body. There's
no reason whatsoever to believe that and much reason not to.
Notice that they've changed even what our Lord said when they
instituted this horrible thing called the mass. And we know why they did. It's
to make poor sinners dependent upon them and not the Lord. Because in order to receive a
blessing from the Lord, the only one that can make this happen
is the priest. So you've got to come to him in order to get
this great mysterious blessing, this magical thing that takes
place, supposedly. But they've changed even what
our Lord said. He said, take this and eat it.
This is my body. He didn't say, it's fixing to
be my body once it goes into your system and you can't prove
anymore that it's not. You see, this is my body. If they had taken a piece of
flesh, they would have known it, wouldn't they? And since
it's obvious when this table is observed, that it's not a
piece of human flesh that you're eating. They've changed it to
mean that once it goes into your body, it becomes his body. That's
not what happened here, even if he meant what they say he
meant. He just simply handed him a piece
of bread. He broke bread and said, distribute
this among yourselves and eat it. This is my body. Is it confusing to you what he
meant by that? Do you think you would have understood
what he said if you'd been there and he broke a piece of bread
and said, this is my body? Do you think you would have understood
that? When John said, behold, the Lamb of God, were people
looking around for a four-legged creature with a wool coat? No,
they understood what John meant by that. When Christ said, I
am the bread, he didn't mean that his body
was made out of wheat. If he pointed to himself and
said, I am the bread, and we don't need to understand that
as being some weird thing where his body was made of wheat, then
why, when he points to the bread and says, this is my body, the
exact opposite of what he said there. Why do we think something
like that takes place then? Well, the simple answer is we
don't. By God's grace, we're not insane. And we know what he said. Now, when
our Lord observed the table with his disciples, he said something
to them that I can't help but remember every time we observe
it. Turn with me to Luke 22 and verse
14. And when the hour was come, he
sat down and the 12 apostles with him. And he said unto them
with desire, with longing, I have desired to eat this Passover
with you before I suffer. Now, if our Lord looked forward
to this, then how should we come to the table? If he looked forward
to eating with us, How should we look forward to eating with
Him? Remembering Him, honoring Him,
obeying Him. It ought to be something that
we desire. It's not just a ritual, just
something that we do quickly and rotely and mechanically. He said, for I say unto you,
I will not any more eat thereof until it be fulfilled in the
kingdom of God. And he took the cup and gave
thanks and said, take this and divide it among yourselves. It
was a cup of wine and somehow they had little containers, each
one of them of their own and they divided the wine among themselves. For I say unto you, I will not
drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God shall
come. And he took bread and gave thanks
and break it. This is important. There weren't
little individual cakes of bread that he just passed out. He took
a big piece of bread and he broke it. And we try to do that. We do that, don't we? There's
a broken bread that we receive. And there's a reason for that. And he gave unto them, saying,
this is my body, which is given for you. This do in remembrance of me. Likewise, also the cup after
supper, saying, this cup is the new covenant. That's the word
there. It's not like the word. It is
the word. It's the new covenant. That's
what he said in my blood. The new covenant is in his blood. This cup is the new covenant
in my blood, which is shared the definition of substitution
for you, for you, for you. broke the bread and gave it to
them to divide among themselves. He poured the wine and told them,
divide it among yourself, showing that our Lord gave himself for
our sins. It says he gave them. They didn't
bring their own bread and wine. And the Lord said, okay, now
everybody take their bread out. No, he broke bread and gave it
to them. That's meaningful. Our Lord gave
himself for our sins. He provided himself for us that we might partake of him. No man took his life from him,
he said, but I lay it down of myself. He broke the bread. He
poured out the wine. And if he does not give us himself,
we can't receive him. Christ is the gift of God. And
so is bread and wine, just regular old bread and wine. And so we
see that in this. It's pictured by that. The bread
is unleavened because leaven all through the word of God is
a symbol of sin. A little leaven leaveneth the
whole lump. And in our Lord Jesus Christ
was no sin. You see how simple, it's not
complicated. But it is beautiful. Peter said, for as much as you
know that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold from your
vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers,
but with the precious blood of Christ as of a lamb without blemish
and without spot. And this is why the wine is real
wine. Grape juice will spoil. You can
only leave it in your refrigerator for so long. The wine is unique in this. It just gets better. It's incorruptible. Luke 5.39, no man also having
drunk old wine straightway desireth new, for he saith the old is
better. You weren't redeemed with corruptible
things. What were you redeemed with? This cup is the new covenant
in my blood. We're changing the time now that
we observe the table because our Lord ate this supper with
his disciples at night. I can't think of a better reason
to do it than he did it that way. Can you? First Corinthians
11, 23, for I received of the Lord that which also I delivered
unto you that the Lord Jesus the same night in which he was
betrayed, he took bread. He did it that same night. The
Passover was always observed at night. Exodus 12, five, your
lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year. You
shall take it out from the sheep or from the goats and you shall
keep it up until the 14th day of the same month. And the whole
assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it in the
evening. And they shall take of the blood
and strike it on the two side posts and on the upper door post
of the houses wherein they shall eat it. The blood. The Lord is going to kill the
firstborn in every household. But he said, when I see the blood,
I'll pass over you. He told them to put the blood
on the door and they did. And it says, and they shall eat
the flesh in that night, not the next morning, in that night.
Roast with fire and unleavened bread with bitter herbs. They
shall eat it. And the Lord's ordinances don't
change except in that he fulfilled them. He fulfilled all the Old
Testament pictures and types. And so these things aren't observed.
We don't kill a lamb anymore and eat it. But our Lord showed
us clearly what to do from that point on. Bread and wine. And I don't understand this at
all, but it says, And if for no other reason, if there wasn't
any other reason to eat it at night except because they did,
and because as we eat it in the evening, two weeks from tonight,
we'll think in our hearts that it was on a night like this that
my Lord was betrayed. In the same night that he was
betrayed, he broke bread. and poured wine. And I don't
understand this at all, but I know this. I know that Judas was a
devil from the beginning, but our Lord felt the betrayal of
one that he called his friend. Our Lord had befriended Judas,
and our Lord felt in his heart And we tend to think that because
he was God in human flesh, that he felt things less than we do. But our thinking is altogether
upside down if we think that way. Because he was God, he felt
things more than we do. Much more. The words of prophecy
concerning this, our Lord said, if it had been one of my enemies
that had betrayed me, I could have borne it. But our Lord felt
this in his heart. Matthew 26, let's read it together. As I said, I don't understand
this. I don't pretend to. But what I know about this is
a blessing to me. Chapter 26, verse 47. And while he yet spake, Judas,
one of the 12, came, And with him a great multitude, with swords
and staves, from the chief priests and elders of the people. Now
he that betrayed him gave them a sign, saying, Whomsoever I
shall kiss, that same is he. Hold him fast. And forthwith
he came to Jesus and said, Hail, Master, and kissed him. And Jesus said unto him, Friend,
wherefore art thou come? Then came they and laid hands
on Jesus and took him. In the same night that he was
betrayed, he took the bread and the wine and said, take it and
eat it and drink it. Now, Judas was a hypocrite. This
kiss was a dishonest one, but our Lord wasn't. When he says
friend, he's not a hypocrite. The breaking of the bread indicates
His sufferings, the pouring out of his blood, this wine, picturing
the pouring out of his blood indicates his death, his sacrificial
death. When blood is separated from
body, there's death. The life is in the blood. Listen
to Leviticus 17.11, for the life of the flesh is in the blood.
And I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement
for your souls. That's why the blood was shed.
That's why Christ shed his blood. Not to give somebody a second
chance. Not to make anything possible.
To make an atonement for your souls. If it didn't make atonement
for your souls, then it was shed in vain. But he said, the blood,
I've given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for
your souls, for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for
the soul. And he wasn't talking about the
blood of a bullock when he said that. It is the blood that maketh
an atonement for the soul. You know what atonement means?
It has to do with reconciliation. It's a word that I was told was
was coined by the translators of scripture because there was
no English word that really conveyed the meaning of the word atonement
in the original language. And so they called it at-one-ment. Me and God are at one. How? Why? Because of the blood. He's
made peace with the blood of his cross. It's the blood that
maketh an atonement for the soul. That's why he said this cup is
the new covenant. in my blood, and the breaking
of his body, the breaking of the bread, and the sufferings
of his body, pictured thereby, were unthinkable. I couldn't
begin to do it justice. You've read it in the scriptures,
you've heard it read, how he was treated and mistreated by
us. But it was not the sufferings
of his body that caused him to cry out from the cross. Even
the shame of bearing the sins of his people. My sin became
his insomuch that he bore the shame of it. But it says that
he counted as a small thing the shame, despising the shame, Hebrews
12.2. But my Lord cried out from the
cross concerning what? The forsaking of himself by his
father. And that's something that we
really can't enter into. My Lord was forsaken of his father.
That's a breaking that we don't know anything really much about. But we can remember that he was
broken. He was broken. When we eat and we drink, we
can remember this question from Lamentations 112. Is it nothing
to you, all you that pass by? Behold and see. And maybe when
we're putting the bread to our lips in the cup, we can behold
and see if there be any sorrow like unto his sorrow, which is
done unto me wherewith the Lord hath afflicted me in the day
of his fierce anger. It's just going to take the Lord's
grace to enable us to enter into that. When the Lord gave them
the cup, he said, this cup is the new covenant. in my blood."
The New Covenant. Can you drink the wine without
thinking of it that way? The New Covenant. His blood is the New Covenant.
God said in Hebrews 8.8, Behold, the days come, saith the Lord,
when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and
with the house of Judah. not according to the covenant
that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by
the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, because they
continued not in my covenant, and I regarded them not, saith
the Lord." We don't need another covenant like that. We don't
need another covenant like the one that this religious world
is pawning off on the ignorant sinners that don't know any better,
like us. That God's giving you another
chance, you know. He's made a new covenant. You
broke the old one, but here's the new one. If you will, God
will. That's not it. That's not it. That was the old one. That was
the old one. If you obey, I'll bless you.
The new one's not like that. What's the new one like? This
is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after
those days, saith the Lord. I will put my laws into their
mind and write them in their hearts. I'm not just gonna inscribe
them on a table of stone and say this do and live. We already
failed at that. And he said, now I'm gonna put
my law in your mind, and I'm gonna write it on your heart.
There's a big difference. And I will be to them a God,
and they shall be to me a people. And they shall not teach every
man his neighbor and every man his brother, saying, know the
Lord, for all shall know me. If you're in on this covenant,
it shall be well with you. All shall know the Lord from
the least to the greatest. Everybody that's in on this covenant,
everybody he makes this covenant with shall know the Lord from
the least to the greatest. How is all that going to happen?
How are we going to be blessed? How is He going to be our God
and we His people? We've sinned. How can He be favorable
to us? How can we know Him? How can
He bless us? For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and
their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more. Do you
see why our Lord Jesus Christ held that cup in His hand and
said, this cup is the new covenant in my blood? That's how God is
merciful to your unrighteousness. That's how God can remember your
sins and iniquities no more, because Christ has washed them
clean with his precious blood. You see why our Lord with desire desired
to partake of this table with his people. The ones that he
loved enough to give himself for them, It was with joy that
he sat down around the table and broke the bread and gave
it to them and poured the wine and gave it to them. And how
it ought to be precious to us more and more so every time.
And then he said, we'll take this as our final thought on
it for tonight. He said, as often as you do this,
you do show the Lord's death. Everything that we do shows the
Lord's death. Why do you suppose that is? Because
the very riches of the very glory of God are beheld in this, that
the Lord Jesus Christ died for his people according to the scriptures. The greatest glory of God that's
ever been revealed to a sinner is the Lord Jesus Christ dying
in the place and for the redemption of his people. Everything we
do, that word show there, you know what it means? The word
when he said you do show the Lord's death till he come, that
word more often than any other translation is translated as
preach. You didn't know you was a preacher,
did you? When you observe that table, you're preaching the Lord's
death. When we preach, we're preaching
the Lord Christ crucified. We preach Christ and Him crucified. What are we singing about? Christ
and Him crucified. When we pray, we thank God for
Christ and Him crucified. And when we partake of this table,
the Lord said, you do preach the Lord's death until He comes. until he come. We do show. We
do many things in the worship that are scriptural and that's
why we do them. We don't do anything that the Lord hasn't taught us
to do, but none is more beautiful and more instructive and more
compellingly simple. There's nothing else that we
do exactly the same each time. Like this. We preach the same
message but from a different text. We don't pray memorized
prayers. But the Lord commands us periodically
on a regular basis to sit down together as a family and eat
this bread and drink this wine to show us so beautifully and
so simply that Christ is all. Christ and Him crucified is our
only message, our only glory, our only hope, and all that we
desire. This is our compass in a sense.
As often as you do this, do it in remembrance of me. All that
we do in the worship we should aspire to do as simply and clearly and as Christ honoringly as we
do this. And if this is for the showing
of his death and shouldn't all that we do show forth his death. It's a beautiful perpetual reminder
of our Lord Jesus Christ and what he's done for me. And may God give us grace that
every time we partake that we do so in simple obedience
to his command, in remembrance of him, and in such a way that
he is glorified in his redemptive character as the one who died
for our sins.