Before I announce Clay, I'd asked
Rich last week to send a check to Red Cross or something like
that about the flood in Houston. And he came up with the idea,
why don't you call the church there and find out if anybody's
in need? And lo and behold, there was a family there that didn't
have flood insurance, that their house was flooded. So we're going
to send a check to them. And I was very thankful for that
opportunity. We're tickled to death to have Clay and Melinda
here with us and their kids. And he was preaching in the conference. Danville, so I asked him to come
here and preach to us tonight. I was up there this summer and
the Lord is blessing the work up there where he's preaching.
It was such an encouragement and we're just tickled to death
to have you with us. Go on up and preach the gospel
to us. I didn't give the name of the
church. It's the Sovereign Grace Baptist Church in Ewing. and I would like to say we greatly
thank you to this church was very helpful to us and to get
in that building and we do very much thank you our whole congregation
thanks you and we want you to all come up now and see it and
meet with us, and we're so thankful for it, just so thankful. It's
good to be with you again this evening. Let's turn in our Bibles
to 1 Kings chapter 20. I'm sorry, 1 Kings
chapter 21. Verse 17 says, And the word of
the Lord came to Elijah the Tishbite, saying, Arise, go down to meet
Ahab king of Israel, which is in Samaria. Behold, he is in
the vineyard of Naboth, whither he has gone down to possess it. And thou shalt speak unto him,
saying, Thus saith the Lord. Hast thou killed and also taken
possession? Now the Lord just told his prophet
exactly where Ahab was. He just told him exactly what
he was doing. And he sends forth the prophet
to ask this question, not for information, but to convict,
and in this case to condemn Ahab. And he said to him, Hast thou
killed, and also taken possession? And thou shalt speak unto him,
saying, Thus saith the Lord in the place where dogs licked the
blood of Naboth. shall dogs lick thy blood, even
thine. Now God, in this case, sent his
messenger to Ahab to pronounce judgment on him. There was no
hope for this man. The Lord pronounced judgment
on him through his prophet. But God sends his messenger with
his word to his child of grace. And through His Word, our Lord
convicts us. He asks us this question and
He convicts us and brings us to repentance and brings us to
faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. I want us to look tonight at
the picture that's set forth here and see what this offense
was that Ahab committed. and we'll see what it is in type,
and we'll see from that why this question is so important. Now,
first of all, we see in Naboth a type of our Lord Jesus Christ. Verse 1 says, it came to pass
after these things that Naboth, the Jezreelite, had a vineyard,
which was in Jezreel, hard by the palace of Ahab, king of Samaria. Now Naboth's name means fruitful. His name is fruitful. And he
was, according to all the commentaries I read, he was an Israelite. But his tribe or his land was
in Jezreel. And that's why he's referred
to here as a Jezreelite. But Jezreel means sown of God. Sown of God. and they both owned
a vineyard. Christ is the seed. He is the fruitful seed, and
He is sown of God, and He is the fruitful vine. That's who
Christ is. In Galatians 3.16, it says, Now
to Abraham and to his seed were the promises made. And he saith
not unto seeds as of many, but as of one unto thy seed, which
is Christ. Christ is the seed. He is the
fruit. He is the seed that God has sown. That's who Christ is. He said,
The hour has come that the Son of God, the Son of Man should
be glorified. You know what he was doing? At
that time, He was on His way to present Himself as the spotless
Lamb of God. Holy, spotless Lamb of God, to
lay down His life, the just for the unjust, so that God might
make Him sin for His people. And He said, The hour has come
that the Son of Man should be glorified. Ought not Christ to
have suffered and entered into his glory? And Christ said this,
except a corn of wheat, except the fruit, the seed, except it
be sown, except it fall into the ground and die, it abideth
alone. But if it die, it bringeth forth
much fruit. And so our Lord Jesus Christ,
in perfect, faithful obedience to the Father, went to the second
garden. The first Adam in the first garden
was made sin by disobedience. The last Adam in the last garden
presented himself to be made sin by obedience. Our Lord God made him sin for
us. And Christ went to the cross
and he suffered death. I was reading a commentary this
week and it said in that passage where it said that the Lord gave
him that he should taste death for every man. You know, man
is added. But somebody commented and said
that It could be said he sent him to taste every death. To taste every death. And Christ
on the cross suffered death. I know we think of the death
that he suffered as being when he's cried, it is finished, and
he gave up the ghost, and that's death. But the second death,
is to be forsaken from the presence of God's glory. To be cast out and forsaken from
the presence of God's glory. That's what it's called in 1
Thessalonica, from the presence of His glory. And on that cross,
Christ suffered that death. In those three hours of darkness
on the cross, our Lord Jesus Christ suffered that death. that
second death that his people would have suffered. He suffered
it justly because God made him sin for us. This morning some
of you were at Danville and I tried to preach a message on the blessing
of imputation and I tried to show you some examples in the
Old Testament where Throughout the Old Testament, I just got
weary of reading commentaries, and one would describe imputation
one way, and one would say it was another way, and the other
would say it was this thing, and the other one that thing.
And I finally just thought, I want to see what God says it is. And
so I went through the Old Testament and the New Testament. Everywhere
I looked, it is the imputation of fact. It is God imputing what
a man has already been made by a prior act. He said if a man
kills a lamb outside, out in the field or he kills one in
the camp and he doesn't bring the blood of that animal to the
door of the tabernacle to offer a sacrifice before the Lord,
by that prior act, disobeying God, he was made a shedder of
blood. He had shed blood. And it says,
the man who does that, blood shall be imputed to him. The
next line says, he hath shed blood. Blood should be imputed
to him, not making him to shed blood, not treating him as if
he shed blood, but because of the fact that he hath shed blood. In 1 Corinthians, when Paul said,
let a man so account of us as the ministers of Christ, he wasn't
saying account of us and impute to us that we're ministers of
Christ to make us ministers of Christ. He was saying impute
to us what God has really made us. It's an imputation of fact. And so when our Lord Jesus Christ
hung on that tree. God was just. To forsake him
on that cross and for him to bear that second death because
it was a fact that he was made sin. He was numbered with the
transgressors, not because it was a pretense or a supposition,
but because he had been made sin. If I went to jail for you, and
you were to serve for 10 years in prison, and I did that for
you, I paid your debt. But I have not taken your crime
off the record book. And for Christ to remove our
crime off the record book, he had to be made our crime, our
transgression, our trespass, our offense, so that the law
looked at him as the only one who was guilty for that crime.
And so God separated himself in just judgment on the tree
from our Redeemer. And for three hours he suffered
the second death. And when he cried out, it's finished.
That's what he meant. That second death is over. I
have paid it. I have put it away. And not only
that, God says, I'll remember their transgressions no more.
He's removed them as far as the east is from the west. And because
he died, because that seed came into this earth and died, He
brought forth much fruit. He said to his disciples, I am
the vine. You know the picture of a vine.
The seed goes in the ground and then the vine comes up. And three
days after he went into the ground, he came up. And he said, I'm
the vine and you are the branches. He said, he that abideth in me
and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit. For without
me you can do nothing. All the fruit is of our Redeemer. So He is the seed, He's the fruit,
and He's the fruitfulness. He's the one sown of God. And
not only that, Christ is the husbandman of this family. Paul
said, I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase. He
said, we're workers together with God. You're God's husbandry. You're God's vineyard. The Lord
said in Isaiah 27, too, in that day, sing ye unto her a vineyard
of red wine. And he said, I, the Lord, do
keep it. I will water it every moment,
lest any hurt it. I will keep it night and day.
Isn't that a blessing to know that for one, as a pastor, it's
a blessing for me to know that I don't have to try to keep the
vineyard. The Lord's keeping the vineyard. And for us all
together, it's a blessing to know that the Lord's going to
keep his vineyard. He's going to keep us. Now brethren,
this vineyard typifies all the spiritual blessings that God
gives his people in Christ. Our inheritance in Christ is
what's pictured in this vineyard. You see, this vineyard was given
to Naboth by God. And it was passed down to him
by his father. And so here comes Ahab, and look
what Ahab says in verse 2. Ahab spake unto Naboth, saying,
Give me thy vineyard, that I may have it for a garden of herbs,
because it's near unto my house, and I will give thee for it a
better vineyard than it. Or if it seem good to thee, I'll
give thee the worth of it in money. And Naboth said to Ahab,
The Lord forbid it me. that I should give the inheritance
of my fathers unto thee. God said in the law that this
land belonged to him. When he gave the land of Canaan
to the Israelites, he said, that land belongs to me. You're sojourners
with me. And he said, so since I'm giving
you this land and this land is mine, He says the father is to
pass it on to his son and his son is to pass it to his son
as an inheritance and it's supposed to stay in the family, in the
tribe to which I gave it. And he said it can't be sold,
it can't be given to anybody else. Brethren, that's our inheritance. God our father gave this inheritance
to us in our Lord Jesus Christ. And it's ours, and nobody else
is gonna possess it. And it can't be given away to
anybody else, and nobody else can come and try to take it from
us. It's ours. And the land represented, it
represented our heavenly inheritance, all our spiritual blessings and
our Lord. There was one exception when
the land could be purchased. One exception. If the man who
owned it was so poor that he fell into debt. And then God
provided a kinsman redeemer that could come along and purchase
that land so that it could continue in his possession and continue
to be his. And if a man did not have a near
kinsman, God said in the year of Jubilee, when the trumpet
blows, then that land goes right back to that man. All God's elect
are God's inheritance. God gave us to Christ to be his
inheritance. has given us everything freely
because we became poor. We became desperate and destitute
and bankrupt. So poor that Christ our kinsman
redeemer had to come forth and redeem us. He had to come and
purchase us. And when that jubilee trumpet
is blown, this gospel that goes forth, when this jubilee trumpet
is blown, God gives this possession right into our hands freely by
His grace. It's ours to have. And so this
is what now that we have pictured here in this vineyard. We have this. We have Christ,
who through his blood, we have redemption, the forgiveness of
sins, according to the riches of his grace, in whom also we've
obtained an inheritance. That's what we have pictured
in this vineyard. The Lord said that we're the children of God,
and if children, then heirs, heirs of God, and joint heirs
with Christ, if so be that we suffer with him, that we may
be glorified together with him. So that's what we have pictured
here. So they both is a type of Christ, and this vineyard
is a type of all spiritual blessings in him, all our heavenly inheritance
in him, salvation in Christ. Now secondly, in Ahab and in
Jezebel, we see the natural heart of man. The natural heart of
man. In verse two, read that again,
Ahab came and spake to Naboth, saying, give me thy vineyard,
that I may have it for a garden of herbs, because it's near unto
my house. And listen to this, and I'll
give thee for it a better vineyard than it. or if it seem good to
thee, I'll give thee the worth of it in money. We're all by
nature like Ahab. This is our problem by nature.
We're like Ahab. He wanted this vineyard simply
as a matter of convenience. That's all. It was close to his
house. That's the only reason he wanted it. It was close to
his house. By nature, we don't want God. We don't want Christ. We just
want some temporal blessings for our personal convenience. By nature, a man's religion is
all a religion of convenience. That's all it is. By nature,
we look down with disdain upon these spiritual blessings I've
been talking about. He said, I'll give you one that's
better than that one. Like he could give a vineyard
better than the vineyard God himself gave to Naboth. And then, this is true too, he
wanted to buy it. He said, or I'll give thee the
worth of it in money. Salvation is not by barter. It's not by purchase. It's not
by you and I trying to do something to earn salvation. There's none righteous, no not
one, so we can't earn it. We can't earn it. God sent His
Son to work out a righteousness for His people, and He is that
righteousness of His people. And God sent His Son to work
faith in His people to bring us to trust only our Redeemer. That privilege goes to Christ
for redeeming His people. He raised Him, Ephesians 1 says,
and gave Him all power in heaven and earth to be head over all
things to the church, which is His body, that He might fill
all in all. And the very next verse says,
and you hath He quickened. That's His privilege, to send
His gospel and to quicken the hearts through the Holy Spirit.
and bring His people to faith in Him. Now, He sent Him to work
out the righteousness and He sent Him to work this faith in
our hearts. Now, go with me to Galatians
2. Let me show you something here that will help. If we try to add anything of
our works to either one of these works of Christ, either His work
of justifying us, making us righteous before God, or His work of working faith in our hearts,
if we think we have to add anything to Christ's work, we're going
to perish. Christ didn't work that. If we
think we have to work anything and add to it, Christ didn't
work that in us. Look here, you know when Peter
got up from the Gentile table, he was sitting there eating,
he got up and he went over and he sat down with the Jews. Now listen
to what Paul says to him. knowing that a man, verse 16,
knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but
by the faith of Jesus Christ, by his faithfulness. Even we
have believed in Jesus Christ that we might be justified by
the faith of Christ and not by the works of the law. For by
the works of the law shall no flesh be justified. And for law
right there, you can put in anything and everything that men come
up with that they think they have to do to be saved, or to
add to the righteousness of Christ, whatever it is. But now watch
this. But, he said, verse 17, if while we seek to be justified
by Christ, if we claim we're justified by Christ, and we ourselves
also are found sinners, what kind of sinners is he talking
about? He's not talking about harlots and pimps and prostitutes. He's talking about if we're found
doing the same kind of sin that Peter did, if we're found thinking
compelling men to live as do the Jews, to live under law,
if we're found committing that sin, is therefore Christ the
minister of that sin? Did Christ work that in you?
God forbid. Well, who worked it? For if I
build again the things which I destroyed, which I claimed
were destroyed, I make myself a transgressor. That's all of
me, that's not of Christ. So when men go around speaking
about progressive sanctification and all these works of the law
by which they're getting better and better and better, compelling
men to live under the law, Paul just said, Christ didn't work
that. That's sin. Christ didn't work that. Men
work that themselves. They make themselves transgressors.
For I, he said, through the law, am dead to the law. I'm dead
to the law that I might live unto God. Isn't that a great
thing to think about? I'm dead to the law. I'm not
living under Moses anymore. I'm not living to attend commandments
anymore. I'm not living under my flesh
anymore. I'm not living under the church anymore. I'm not living
under a group of men going around trying to keep me under watch
all the time. I'm not living under that anymore.
I can now live under God. Look here, he says, I'm crucified
with Christ, nevertheless I live, and yet not I, but Christ liveth
in me. In the life which I now live
in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved
me and gave himself for me. And I don't frustrate the grace
of God, because if righteousness come by the law, by anything
I do, what I'm saying is Christ died in vain. Now, by nature,
our carnal minds are enmity against God, so we hate that message
of salvation by grace. We hate it. We hate it because
it's a sovereign grace, it's free grace, it's distinguishing
grace. Look back at 1 Kings 21.3. When they both said to Ahab,
this is what he said, the Lord forbid it me, verse 3, that I
should give the inheritance of my father's unto thee. Do you
see distinguishing grace in that? Here's a man that God gave this
inheritance to and he says, I'm sorry, God forbids me to give
this to you. I can't give it to you. I have
no ability to give it to you and I'm forbidden to give it
to you. That's God giving it to one man and not giving it
to another man. He said to Moses, I'll have mercy
on whom I'll have mercy, and I'll have compassion on whom
I'll have compassion. Therefore, it's not of him that
willeth, it's not of him that runneth, it's of God that shows
mercy. But the carnal mind hates this message of grace. Look at
verse 4. Ahab came into his house heavy
and displeased because of the word which Naboth the Jezreelite
had spoken to him. For he had said, I will not give
thee the inheritance of my fathers. And he laid him down upon his
bed. He turned away his face, and he would eat no bread. But
here comes vain religion. Here comes vain religion with
another way other than Christ. Verse 5. But Jezebel, his wife,
came to him. And when you read Jezebel, you
know from Revelation, the Lord Jesus called a false prophet
Jezebel. So you know who we're dealing
with here. Here comes Jezebel, his wife came to him and said
unto him, why is thy spirit so sad that thou eatest no bread?
And he said unto her, because I spake unto Naboth the Jezreelite,
and he answered, I will not give thee my vineyard. And Jezebel,
his wife, said unto him, Dost thou now govern the kingdom of
Israel? Are you the king? Are you the
king of this kingdom? Arise, and eat bread, and let
thine heart be merry. I will give thee the vineyard
of Naboth the Jezreelite. False religion does, which Isabel
did right here. This is what false religion does
right here for poor sinners who are too blind in sin to know
any better. This is what vain religion does.
She told Ahab, you are the king. Don't let this man tell you that
there's something you can't do. You're the king. And that's what
vain religion is telling men every single day. And by that
they're saying we will not have Christ the King reign over us. That's exactly what they're saying.
So works religion gives the sinner something to do and calls it
partaking of the bread and partaking of the vineyard. Arise, eat bread,
I'll give you the vineyard. God said, they've healed also
the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, saying, peace,
peace, where there is no peace. You know, something that I've
discovered in this thing of just talking about what I've seen
in scripture concerning imputation, the hardest thing in the world
is for us to let go of something that we're holding on to that's
not according to the word of God. Hardest thing in the world.
And the harder thing than that is to let go of a false hope
that's not according to this Word of God. To hang on to a
false hope. The Lord said it's being twice
dead. Being dead in sin and having
a false hope. I don't want that. I want the
Lord to teach me. I want to know Him. I want to
know that I know Him. Well, this is what, now let's
go look again. This is what all men do who exalt
the sinner and claim salvation is by the sinner's will and by
his works. This is what all false religions
doing right here. Watch, verse eight. So she wrote
letters in Ahab's name and sealed them with his seal and sent the
letters unto the elders and to the nobles that were in the city
dwelling with Nabo. And she wrote in the letter saying,
proclaim a fast. You know what a fast was? It
was a religious, it was a religious thing. But she wasn't doing this
for religious sake. This was a show of religion. And that's what all false religion
is. And she said, set they both on
high among the people. Now remember, they both pictures
Christ. False religion is claiming to
exalt and worship the Lord Jesus Christ. They're claiming to exalt
Christ. But look what she did. And set
two men, sons of Belial. wicked men before Him to bear
witness against Him, saying, Thou didst blaspheme God and
the king. All the witnesses of vain religion
are wicked men who are bearing false witness against Christ. Everybody. And then carry Him
out and stone Him that He may die. And vain religion crucifies
Christ afresh. Now when Christ came, when the
Son of God dwelt among us on this earth, that's what we did
to Him. That right there is how we received
Him when He came. In a pretense of religion, in
a pretense of religion, you and I can see what we did ourselves
all the days of our rebellion by looking at what took place
when Christ came here and how men treated Him. in a pretense
of religion, claiming to be looking for the Messiah, bore false witness against him,
and nailed the Prince of Life to a tree. That's all we ever
did, you and I ever did, while we were dead in our sins. That's
all we ever did. We may have been the Greek who
thought we were too wise for any kind of religion whatsoever
and all that was foolishness unto us, but that's exactly what
we were doing. Or if we were the Jew who thought
we had to be saved by works and we were trying to do the best
we could and hope the good outweighed the bad, that's what we were
doing. That's exactly what we were doing. Now, is there anybody here who
wants to take possession of God's salvation by your work? Is there
anybody here that is entertaining any thought that you can take
possession of God's salvation by a purchase, by your hand? Let's know what Christ said.
Ho, everyone that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he
that hath no money, come ye buy and eat, yea, come buy wine and
milk without money and without price. It does not cost the sinner
anything. It doesn't cost the sinner anything.
Christ Jesus paid the price. He paid it all. It doesn't cost
the sinner anything. Don't imagine that you're going
to have to purchase salvation. Don't imagine you have to do
something to obtain salvation. Christ has done it all. He's
done it all. Now thirdly, we see an example
here of God sending His Word. Verse 17, And the word of the
Lord The word of the Lord came to Elijah the Tishbite, saying... This is the word of the Lord.
The word of the Lord came, saying, Arise, go down to meet Ahab,
king of Israel, which is in Samaria. Now watch that. Arise, go down to meet Ahab. He knew him by name. King of
Israel, which is in Samaria. Behold, he's in the vineyard
of Naboth. whether he's gone down to possess it. He's gone
down to steal it. The Word of the Lord came to
this prophet. And what does the Word of the Lord discern? The
Word of the Lord discerned where he was. He knew right where he
was. The Word of the Lord discerned
what was in his heart, what he was purposing to do. The Word
of the Lord discerned all that. Because the Word of God is quick
and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword. dividing
asunder, piercing to the, even to the dividing asunder of soul
and spirit, and is to the joints and marrow, and is a discerner
of the thoughts and intents of the heart. The Word of the Lord,
right now that's going forth, somebody here, the Word of the
Lord is revealing, well everybody here, this Word of the Lord is
revealing what's in our heart. It's revealing where we are,
either we're in Christ, are way out of Christ. And this Word's
discerning that. This Word's going forth and it's
discerning what's in our heart. Either we're bowing to Christ
and thankful that He was crucified in our room instead, or we're
rejecting Him and we're killing Him afresh by our rejection of
Him. And this Word right now is discerning
the heart's intent, what its purpose is. Either we're broken
and contrite, a broken heart, a new heart God's given us at
Christ's feet, or we're hard-hearted saying, no, I will not have that
gospel. But this word's discerning the
heart. Discerning the heart. He sent
his word to Ahab in judgment to harden him and turn him over
to reprobation. There was no more hope for him.
Now, I pray tonight that our Lord is sending this word to
speak in our hearts with this question and bring us to repentance
and faith in Christ. Somebody, now here's the question,
verse 19. Thus saith the Lord, hast thou
killed and also taken possession? Now this is the question God's
going to make His child answer when He comes to save. Has thou
killed and also taken possession? Have you crucified and rejected
Christ by vain works and unbelief? Have we tried to steal Christ's
glory by our own works? to try to have a little bit of
glory for ourself. This is the question the gospel
brings home to heart. He said when the Spirit of God's
come, he will convince the world, convict the world of sin because
they believe not on me. And of righteousness because
the work's finished and I go to my father. And of judgment
because judgment's settled. The prince of this world's been
cast out. His head's been crushed on Calvary's cross. And the Spirit
of God will convince a man of that. And I know what's going
to happen if the Spirit of God convinces a man of that. He said,
I will pour upon the house of David and upon the inhabitants
of Jerusalem the spirit of grace and of supplications. And they
shall look upon me whom they have pierced and mourn for him
as one mourneth for his only son. and shall be in bitterness
for him, as one is in bitterness for his firstborn." God's going
to break our heart. He's going to break our heart.
When Ahab heard this, left to himself, I know the answer to
that too. It shows us right here, verse
20. Ahab said to Elijah, has thou found me, O mine enemy?
That was his response to these two questions. And listen to what Elijah said.
He answered, I have found thee because thou hast sold thyself
to work evil in the sight of the Lord. And so he told Ahab
he'd surely die. And all who attempt to come to
God by their own works, rejecting Christ and stealing his glory
will surely perish. But when he heard this word,
when he heard this word, now understand when he heard the
judgment, that's why he did what he did. This is what the Lord
told him, verse 27. He told him he was going to die
and that dogs were going to lick up his blood. And when he heard
that, what he did was a picture of repentance. Look here, it
came to pass when Ahab heard those words, he rent his clothes,
he put sackcloth upon his flesh and fasted and lay in sackcloth
and went softly. Now that was only in his flesh.
He just did this because of that judgment that was coming. But
when God works it in the heart, It'll be real. And listen to
what it says here. Even at this that was just in
his flesh, verse 28, the word of the Lord came to Elijah the
Tishbite, saying, seest thou how Ahab humbleth himself before
me? Because he humbleth himself before
me, I will not bring the evil in his days, but in his son's
days will I bring the evil upon his house. What is that teaching
us? If God did that for this man
who only repented in his flesh just simply because he heard
a word of judgment, when God's broken our heart and he brings
us to true repentance and brings you to bow down to the Lord Jesus
Christ and submit to him and cast all your care into his hand
begging mercy from him, you know what you're going to find? Mercy. You're going to find mercy. The
scripture says this, who is a God, like unto thee, that pardoneth
iniquity and passeth by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage,
he retaineth not his anger forever, because he delighteth in mercy. If there's anybody here that
needs mercy, a real sinner who needs mercy, come to God. His thoughts are not our thoughts.
We get angry at folks and we won't show them mercy. God will. God will. You come to him begging
mercy, he will show mercy. He never cast a sinner out who
came for mercy. Amen. I remember one time a man said
to me, I asked for mercy and God didn't give it to me. And
my reply was, you never asked for mercy. You tried to strike
some kind of deal with God. If I do this, then you do that. If you ask for mercy, you'd have
it. Because there's never been anyone
in the history of this planet that asked for mercy, pure, free
mercy, that God turned away. Isn't that wonderful? And we're going to observe the
Lord's table. The Lord said, this do in remembrance
of me. And the wine represents the shed
blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. The bread represents the broken
body of the Lord Jesus Christ. And the Lord said, Take eat.
This is my body broken for you. This is my blood shed for you.
This is for every believer. What? is the requirement to take
the Lord's table, faith in Christ. That's it. If you look to Christ
only as all you have, the table's for you. May the Lord enable us to do
this in remembrance of him. Clay, thank you for that message.
That was such a blessing. And I love to hear the gospel
preached from the Old Testament, don't you? Let's pray together. Lord. In Christ's name. We ask. That you'd show us mercy. We wouldn't dare come in our
own merit or our own works. For, Lord, we confess our righteousnesses
are as filthy rags. We ask for mercy for Christ's
sake. In his name we pray. Amen.