I must not have turned that thing
on this morning, because it's on two. Glenn, you turned it
on, didn't you? He turned it on for him, so I
must not. I forgot to turn it on, I think. 1 Corinthians 11. I think it's always good for
us to go back and revisit this passage concerning the Lord's
Supper, the table of the Lord, One of the greatest joys I am
convinced that you and I can have as children of God is to
assemble as we are to worship God one with another. There's
a reason that David said, I was glad when they said unto me,
let us go. I don't want to go up by myself.
I want to go with some other folks. Let us go up to the house
of the Lord and worship. How good and how pleasant it
is for brethren to dwell together in unity. And the Lord Jesus
said, were two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the
midst of them. So what a blessing it is, and
what an honor it is, and what a privilege it is to gather with
the Lord's people, to worship the living God, to sing, and
to hear the Scriptures read, and hear someone lift us up in
prayer to our Father in Heaven. It's wonderful. But you know,
as we come together to worship, And we see this in this passage
especially to take the Lord's Supper as we do and will this
afternoon. It's possible. I don't think
we do it here. I hope we don't do it as individuals,
but it has happened. It's possible to come together
for worse and not for better. And that's why I think it's good
to go back every so often and review The way in which you and
I are come to the Lord's table. The way we're to come. How does
He tell us to come? What does He tell us this ordinance
is about? And what should be the attitude
of our hearts when we come to it? This is what got this church
in some trouble. Let me read it to you. 1 Corinthians
chapter 11, beginning verse 17. Now, in this that I declare unto
you, I praise you not, that you come together not for the better,
you don't come together to edify and comfort and to teach and
correct one another, but you come together for worse. During
the service and after the service, you leave worse off than when
you came. That's what Paul said. Well,
first of all, when you come together in the church, in the assembly,
the called out ones, You come together in the local worship.
I hear that there is divisions among you, and I partly believe
it. For there must also be heresies
among you, divisions among you, cliques among you, that they
which are approved may be made manifest among you. When you
come together, therefore, into one place, this is not to eat
the Lord's Supper. For in eating, every one taketh
before other his own supper. One is hungry, another is gluttonous,
drunken. What, have you not houses to
eat and drink in? Or despise ye the church of God,
and shame them that have not? What shall I say to you? I praise
you not. For I have received of the Lord
that which I also 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. And after
the same manner also he took the cup, and when he had supped,
saying, This cup is the New Testament in my blood, this do you as oft
as you drink it. in remembrance of me. For as
oft as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you do show the
Lord's death till he come. Wherefore, whosoever shall eat
this bread and drink this cup of the Lord unworthily shall
be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord. But let every
man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread and drink
of that cup. For he that eateth and drinketh
unworthily eateth and drinketh judgment to himself. not discerning
the Lord's body. And for this cause many are weak
and sickly among you, and many sleep. Many are dead. For if we would judge ourselves,
we would not be judged. But when we are judged, we are
chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with
the world. Wherefore, my brethren, when you come together to eat,
wait on one another, tarry one for another. And if any man hunger,
let him eat at home. that ye come not together unto
condemnation, and the rest will I set in order when I come." This church had come together
here to partake of the Lord's table, to eat the bread and to
drink the cup in remembrance of His broken body and His blood. But they had come together for
worse, as the apostle tells us there in verse 17. And he tells
us in verse 18 and verse 21, part of the problem that they
were having. There were divisions among them. There were cliques
in this church. They were mostly Greeks. Some
of them were wise, and they were stubbed up and snubbed up at
those who were uneducated. Some of them, no doubt, were
wealthy. And they looked down upon those who were poor. Some
of them had plenty to eat, and they brought in huge dishes of
the foods that they'd cooked and brought in for themselves
and their friends, and others didn't have anything. They had
these cliques, and there was this division among them. And
Paul gives them the remedy to solve this particular aspect
in verse 22 and verse 24. He said, you eat at home. Eat
at home. If you're hungry, eat at the
house. This is not to eat the Lord's
supper. You don't bring a big meal. That's not the Lord's supper.
You've come together for this intent, He said, but that's not
what you're doing. Eat at home if you're hungry.
You come here to take a piece of bread and remember the Lord's
Body. You come here to take a cup of
wine and remember His blood. You don't come here to fill your
belly. Eat at home. And when you come together, tarry
one for another. Wait on one another. Respect
one another. If you think you're wiser than
that common man, then you respect him and you wait. If he's got
something to say, you let him speak. Don't think you have preference
because you're rich, you have a better job or a better position
in life. Respect one another. Love one
another. And wait on one another. That
will solve the problem. At least part of it. Part of
it. Paul was heard about this. He
said, I don't praise you for this. I'm not going to praise
you for what you're doing. But he intended to correct this
error. But you know something he wasn't
surprised by? He wasn't shocked by it. He said,
I'm sorry that it happened. And it's hurt me and I'm going
to correct it. But he said, this don't surprise me. And he said
there in verse 19, For there must be also heresies among you. There's heresies among you. This
word used to mean just divisions, but some say it means more than
that. It means erring from the truth
and even damnable heresies. Scripture talks about damnable
heresies. And Paul says, I can believe
that you fellows are having trouble with the Lord's Supper because
I know that there's heresy among you. Remember what he wrote to
them about the resurrection? I'll say some among you. That
there's no resurrection? You know what he said here, there
must needs be heresies among you. We look back through the
church, Brother Glenn read it to us this morning, in the Old
Testament church. There was heretics in there.
There were false prophets in there. Speaking lies. The Lord
told me to tell you. The Lord spoke to me and here's
what He said. And they had all these silly
dreams, just tell me your dreams. They had them back then. The
Lord Jesus had twelve apostles. One of them was the devil. There
was a church established down in Samaria, and they had a Simon
the Saucer in that church. There's tyrants among the wheat.
Peter said there would be false teachers among you, just as there's
false prophets among the Old Testament church. So it shouldn't
surprise us if there's heresies. You know when you talk about
heresies, you know where most heresies arise up front? Professing Christians. Don't
they? You read about Jim Jones and
all of those guys that finally ended like he ended? You know
those folks come out of the Christian church, the professing church?
I tell you, sometimes, boy, you start thinking, You think, Lord, is it me? Do
you ever think that way? Who's going to be the next one?
Who's going to be the next one that winds up being the enemy
of the cross of Christ that we thought was a friend of Christ?
Who's going to be the next one to go bad? Who's going to be
the next one that grieves the church of the Lord Jesus Christ?
And you look at yourself and you think, Lord, is it me? Is
it I? Paul read that. Glenn read it
this morning. Those in the church there at
Ephesus, Paul said, among your own selves shall men rise up,
teaching things that they should not, perverting and twisting
the truth to draw away apostles after themselves. There must
needs be heresies, Paul said, among you. You wonder sometimes,
don't you, through all the hundreds of years how the church has existed. How the church has helped to
the truth and love and survived with all the oppositions that
she had to face within herself? But she has. She has. The Lord has taken this thing,
all the heresy and all the terrors and all the goats that's within
the church, and He has so arranged it that even that's for His glory.
And tell you what the apostle says, look how he says it here.
There must needs be heresies among you for this reason, that
they which are approved, those whom God approves, those whom
God teaches, those who love Christ and love His people and love
His gospel, that they may be made manifest. When heresy arises,
God's got some fellow over here and He's got some fellow over
here. And what do they do? Boy, they stand right up. And
they say, wait a minute, that's not what the Bible teaches. And
boy, they set forth the truth. And sometimes you never know
who that's going to be, do you? You never know who's going to
stand up and come forth and defend the truth. Who has God taught? Who does God approve of? Sometime
when the church is faced with these heresies, boy, He'll manifest
it. He'll manifest it. Who would
have ever dreamed that the Lord was going to reprove the Catholic
Church by a poor monk that lived right among them? Old Martin
Luther. And yet that's what he did. Old
Gideon was down there. The Medianites had invaded the
land. They had taken over everything,
and here Gideon was down there hiding behind the threshing floor,
threshing out some wheat. His family was the poorest in
Manasseh, and he was the poorest in his family. And the Lord came
to him and said, Oh, you mighty man of Babylon. He started looking
around. Who is he talking to? He said, I'm talking to you.
I'm talking to you. I'm going to use you to deliver
my people. It started out with 32,000. The
Lord said, that's too many. And sent all but 300 home. And
sent that man with a bunch of candles and lanterns and covered
those things to deliver the children of Israel. You just don't know,
do you? Sent little David to slay that giant. And mighty Saul
was afraid to go against him. But here a little fellow went
against him with a sling and five stones. And he said, I come
to you in the name You don't know who the Lord is going to
raise up to deliver, do you? But I tell you, when heresy comes
and you think, boy, the church ain't going to make it through
this, the Lord will put His hand on some nobody and raise him
up. And God says, I approve of this
man. I've taught this man. And he loves me. And he knows
the truth. And there he stands. Like old
Luther, I can do nothing else but stand. In verse 23, now look at this. This is a very important verse
of Scripture for this reason. It shows us that the table of
the Lord is an ordinance, and it's instituted
by the Lord Himself. And he instituted this ordinance
through the Apostle Paul. But who did he institute this
ordinance to? Who was it that he gave this
ordinance to? The Gentile churches. That's why this is so important. The Lord spoke to Paul. Paul
says it like this, I have received of the Lord that which I also
delivered unto you. That's so important. He didn't
write to the Corinthian church or any other Gentile church and
say, do you guys want to keep this ordinance? Well, go up there
to Jerusalem and see how they keep the Passover, and you do
it like that. That's not what he said, was it? I don't know
how they kept that Passover fully, but the Lord didn't tell them
to do that. He didn't say, you go up there and you watch the
church at Jerusalem do it. I'm not exactly for sure how
they practiced that. May have been like this and may
not have been. He didn't say, you call Peter and John and James
and have them to come down here and let them tell you how to
do this. When the Lord was going to institute this memorial service,
He spoke to the Apostle of the Gentiles. And He said, I'm going
to give it specifically to them through you. This ain't for the
Jewish church. They already have it. But I'm
going to renew, I'm going to establish this ordinance here
among the Gentile churches. Ain't that a blessing? You know
something? We probably still wouldn't practice
it if we didn't have this. The Gentile churches may not
still practice. You and I may not come here as
we are this evening and partake of this bread and this wine in
remembrance of His body if the Lord hadn't given this to Paul
to give to the Gentile churches. I just don't hardly believe that
the Gentiles would have started practicing it on their own, because
it was to the Jewish church. There are those who have added
to this ordinance. There are those who have taken
away from it. And where they got the authority to do that,
I don't know. Some people think truth is relative. whatever you want it to be for
the time. And they think it evolves. What was truth in 60 A.D. may not be truth now. And what's
truth to you may not be truth to me. But see, that's not so,
is it? What's truth back there when
this was instituted is truth today. You and I or nobody else
has the authority to add to this ordinance or to take away from
it. Now free will has added to it, and here's the way they've
done it. They've put right alongside and part of this ordinance, foot
washing. Wash your feet. Ain't this so
important when you come here and read this, do you see foot
washing any place? You don't, do you? Then let's
don't practice it. Don't practice it. Catholicism
has come here and taken away from this. They don't let their
members drink wine or grape juice. They don't offer them to cut
during this service. Where do they get that? Here
we're told how to practice this ordinance. That's what Paul gives
us. He gives it to the Gentile church.
And he says here in verse 26 that we're to practice this.
until the Lord comes again. See, he'll never change. It's
just as much relevant today as it was back then. Verse 26, as
long as the world stands until the Lord comes again, he says,
you do this in remembrance of me. Now, in the last part of
verse 23, here's what he said. There's three things about this.
First of all, he says this in the last part of verse 23, the
Lord Jesus, The same night in which he was betrayed, he took
breath. First of all, it's this. Look
at this. He was betrayed. He was betrayed. That's one thing
you and I should never forget. He was betrayed. Not by an enemy. The man, he said, that was my
friend, he betrayed me. We walked into the house of God
together. Had sweet fellowship together as men. Judas was probably
a friendly fellow. It wasn't my enemy that did this.
I could abhor that, he said. But it was a friend that betrayed
me. Judas came to the Lord Jesus
there in the garden with all that band of soldiers and men
with staves and knives and swords and so on, and he kissed the
Lord Jesus. And the Lord said, Judas, friend,
you betrayed the Son of Man with a kiss. With a kiss. It broke his heart. You study
sometime John, begin there in chapter 13 of John, and the other
parallel passages that spoke of when the Lord was with his
apostles there, and they were eating, he's washing their feet.
His heart, his mind was upon this betrayal. He that betrays
me is the one that is eating with me from the cup, he said. The hand of Him that betrayeth
me is right here in front of me. One of you shall betray me
this night. Judas, what you do, do quickly.
He was betrayed. For thirty pieces of silver,
they betrayed our Lord. And it broke his heart. It broke
his heart. And he says here, what makes
this even worse, and it was night. And it was night. I tell you,
if I'm going to have any trouble, I want it to be every day, don't
you? When night comes, if you're sick, if you're a real sick bull,
when night comes, it just makes it worse. If a baby is sick and
running a fever, when it comes night, the fever just gets higher.
And here the Lord Jesus was in that upper room. They had lanterns
and they had candles. The shadows were there. And you
go out into the streets and everything was dark. It was at night. And that's when they came and
got him. The same night in which he was betrayed. Our troubles
are always exaggerated of a night. But thirdly, we need to see this,
even though that he was betrayed, the same night that he was betrayed
is when he instituted this service to his church there in Jerusalem. The church. Ain't that amazing? If I'd have been in his predicament,
I'd have been thinking about myself. I'd have been thinking
how to get along or to secure myself at least for a while,
to get a little break, to have a little rest until I could face
the trouble that was coming. But not him. He didn't have long
at all. And he took his time to what?
Institute this service for his church. To give them something
to remember him by. How he must love us. How he must
love us. In verse 24, here is what he
said, This is my body. When he had taken the bread,
and he gave thanks, and he broke it, and said, Take it. This is my body which is broken
for you. This do in remembrance of me. Now when he says this is my body,
that is not his literal body. We know that. This bread never
changes. It's bread when it's blessed,
and it's bread when we eat it. It's never changed into the body
of the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul made that so clear in verse
26. For as often as ye eat this bread,
and drink this cup, it never ceases to be bread, and never
ceases to be wine. And what the Master is saying
here with this broken body and this bread, He says simply, it's
symbolic of my body. That's why He broke it. This
is not my literal body, but it's symbolic of my body. It's like
my body. It's broken. The Lord Jesus is
a shepherd, but not literally, is He? But He's like a shepherd. He's called a rock. He's not
a literal rock, but He's like a rock. He's a doer. He's like
a doer. You and I are sheep. The sheep
symbolic of us. And that's what the Lord Jesus
is saying. This bread is symbolic of the
brokenness of the Lord Jesus. Broken in heart, sorrowful in
His soul, whipped, beaten, mired, and broken upon the cross of
Calvary. Not a bone was broken, but he
was broken. His body was crushed. His farm,
his vestige was marred more than any man. That's what this bread
represents. And when we reach in that little
bowl that Bob brings around to us, you'll notice about that
bread, it's not in one whole piece. It's several pieces. It's broken. That's His body. You look at it. Take a little
piece out and you look at it. And you feel it. And you put
it in your mouth. That's His body. It's broken. And who was it broken for? For
you. This is my body which was broken
for you. When you and I come here this
evening to partake of this supper, remember that. Remember Him. It's broken. It's broken for
you, broken for me. In verse 25, he said in a like
manner, take this cup. This cup is the New Testament,
the New Covenant in my blood. This do you as oft as you drink
it in remembrance of me. This cup, this wine, represents
the blood of the New Covenant. That's what he said. This is
the blood of the New Covenant. You know the Lord made a covenant.
The Father made a covenant with His Son. I love to think about
it. The Scripture has it all the
way through the Old Testament and the New Testament. And the
Father says, My Son, I'm going to give you a people. I'm going
to give you a body. I'm going to give you a work.
I'm going to give you a name. I'm going to give you power.
I'm going to give all things into your hands. I love you.
And I'm going to give you everything. That's my covenant with you,
and I'm going to seal it with an oath. Once have I sworn unto
David, I'll never lie to him. Ain't that what he said? I'll
never lie to him. I swear and will not repent.
You're a priest forever. The Father sealed his part of
the covenant with an oath. And when the Lord Jesus came
in our likeness, in our body, and He went about doing good
and healed all that was pressed of the devil, And He pleased
the Father in all that He did, all that He thought, all that
He said. And upon the cross of Calvary,
He sealed His part of the covenant with His own blood. The Father
sealed His part with the oath. The Lord Jesus sealed His part
with the blood. The God of peace that raised
again from the dead, the Lord Jesus. That great Shepherd of
the sheep through the blood. of the everlasting covenant.
That's why it's called the covenant of blood. He sealed it with His
own blood. And He said, when you drink of
this cup, when you take this wine, this is My blood of the
new covenant. The new covenant. It sealed the
covenant. Down in Egypt, the blood of that
Passover lamb secured the firstborn. Secured them from that plague
that came at midnight. And the blood of the Lord Jesus
Christ, God's Lamb, secures every last believer from the wrath
of God and from the wrath that's to come. So as you and I drink
this cup this evening, remember that. Remember Him. Mark says it like this, this
is my blood which is shed for many. And he stops there. Matthew says it like this, this
is my blood of the New Testament which is shed for many for the
remission of their sins. And Luke says it like this, this
is the New Testament in my blood which is shed for you. For you. Boy, if you can put your name
right there. You can say this is mine. This blood was shed
for me. Great source of joy. This is
my body that was broken for you. This is my blood that was shed
for you. There's many things that you
and I could be thinking about this evening. And good things.
Be lawful to think about. But when Bob brings that wine
and that bread around to us, there's only one thing lawful
to think about. Put everything else out of your
mind. Think about Him. Remember Him. Remember what he's
done. He was crushed. He poured out
his blood. And who was it? Who was it? Paul mentions it
here in verse 26. It was the Lord. For as often
as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you do show the Lord's
death. That was the Lord's body. That
was the Lord's blood. The Lord of glory. The Lord of
hosts. He's somebody. That's the King's
blood. The Shepherd for the sheep. The
King for the peasants. The Sovereign for us poor sinners. This was the Lord's blood in
the Lord's body. There's been so many people perplexed
about verse 27. I know a congregation we used
to attend, and this happens in so many places. I don't care
where you go, this happens. That if they have a Sunday afternoon
set aside to partake of the Lord's table, there's a lot of people
who won't show up. And if you talk to them almost
inevitably, I'm not sure it's their answer, I just don't feel
worthy. I just don't feel worthy. It's been a source of trouble
all the way down through history. Verse 27, Whosoever shall eat
this bread, and drank this cup of the Lord unworthily, shall
be guilty of the body and of the blood of the Lord." And somebody
looks at that and they say, oh my, I can't take that. Why can't
you partake of that? I just don't feel worthy. Why
don't you feel worthy? Oh, I'm such a sinner. Oh, that's not
what that means. And I would go as far as to say
this, if you don't feel yourself to be a sinner, you probably
don't have any business coming to this table. Because that's
what this is all about. This is my blood which was shed
for you for the remissions of your sins. And who could be more
welcomed then than a man that comes here and knows what a sinner
he is, and looks to this symbol of that blood that took your
sins away? No, it's not being a sinner that
disqualifies you. That's not what makes a man unworthy.
And that wasn't what made them unworthy. The reason they were
partaken of this unworthy is the manner in which they were
partaken of it. Read on, look what he said. But
let a man examine himself. Examine yourself first of all
to see if you know the Lord. See if you're in the faith. See
if your heart's right with Him. Do you know Him? Do you love
him? Is your faith in his blood? Examine
himself. I can't examine you. I'm too
busy examining myself. I pray about this service. I
really do. Lord, give me a heart to remember you. Then let him
eat of that bread and drink of that cup. For he that eateth
and drinketh unworthily eateth and drinketh judgment to himself. And here it is, not discerning
the Lord's body. It wasn't because these Corinthians
said, well, we're just unworthy, we're sinners. That wasn't their
problem. They weren't discerning the Lord's body. They were bringing
big meals. And they were bringing so much
wine, some of them were getting drunk. They weren't remembering
the Lord. They weren't thinking of Him.
And Paul said, well, you do yourself a lot of harm. You better examine
yourself, because you're not discerning the Lord's body. You're
blunting and getting drunk. And he says, for this cause,
in verse 30, many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep. If we would judge ourselves,
we would not be judged. But when we're judged, we're
chastened to the Lord that we should not be condemned with
the world. Now, I'm not saying if you're
sick and you're weak, it's because you've been partaking of this
cup unworthy. That would be ridiculous for
me to say that. All the sicknesses of God's children don't arise
because they've done something against God, because we've sinned. That ain't why we're sick. Sometimes
it is. Sometimes it is, but not always.
But Paul said, here's the trouble that you Corinthians are having.
You're not discerning the Lord's body. Do this right. Do it right. Wherefore, my brethren,
when you come together to eat, wait on one another. And if any
man hungry, let him eat at home. That you come not together to
condemnation. The rest will I set in order
when I come. May the Lord bless His Word.