1 Corinthians 11, and let's begin
reading in verse 17. We have looked at this passage
of Scripture several times through the years. Repetition is good. This is one of the ways that
we get into the heart, instill truth into our memory is by repetition,
repeating these things. I hope it won't be boring to
you. Let's read this passage, then
look at it together. 1 Corinthians 11, verse 17. Now this that I declare unto
you, I praise you not, that you come together, not for the better,
but for the worse. For first of all, when you come
together in the church, I hear that there be divisions among
you, and I partly believe it. For there must also be heresies
among you, that they which are approved may be made manifest,
revealed, made known among you. When you come together, therefore,
into one place, this is not to eat the Lord's supper." That's
not why you're gathering, really. Verse 21 tells us why they were
gathered. For in Eden every one taketh
before other his own supper, one is hungry, another is drunken,
gluttony. What, have you not houses to
eat and drink in? Or despise you the church of
God, and shame them which have not? What shall I say to you? Shall I praise you in this? I
praise you not. For I have received of the Lord
that which also I delivered unto you. The Lord Jesus, the same
night in which He was portrayed, 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 this
same manner also He took the cup, when He had sunk, saying,
This cup is the New Testament in My blood, this do you as oft
as you drank it in remembrance of Me. For as often 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 blood of the Lord. But let a man examine
himself, and so let him eat of that bread and drink of that
cup. For he that eats and drinks unworthily,
eats and drinks damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord's
body. For this cause many are weak
and sickly among you, and many sleep. For if we would judge
ourselves, we should 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,
tarry one for another. And if any man hunger, let him
eat at home, that you come not together unto condemnation, and
the rest will I set in order when I come." In verse 17, the Apostle Paul
said, you come together, not for the better, but for the worse. I imagine, I know this in my
heart experience, and I trust that you do too. that the chief
joy in the believer's life is to assemble themselves together
with the Lord's people. That better be your chief joy.
You better want that. If you don't want that, we've
got a problem, haven't we? Brother Glenn quoted that verse
this morning. I was glad when they said unto
me, Let us go up unto the house of the Lord. Let us. Let us. I want to be among the Lord's
people. Let us go. And that precious
promise where two or three are gathered together in my name,
there am I in the midst of them. I tell you where the Lord's people
are assembled, we've got the best company of both worlds.
You won't find better company than the Lord's people. And you
won't find better company than the Lord from heaven. We've got
Him here on this earth gathered with us. We've got the Lord from
heaven. Right here in our midst. What
a joy it is, therefore, to assemble ourselves with the Lord's people. But listen to this. Listen to
this. God is greatly to be feared in
the assembly of His saints. To be had in reverence of all
of them that are about Him. And listen to this. This is what
the wise preacher said. Keep your foot when you go to
the house of God. Be more ready to hear than to
give the sacrifice of fools, for they do not consider that
they do evil. Be not rash with your mouth,
and let not your heart be hasty to utter anything before Him. For the Lord is in heaven, and
you are on this earth. Let your words be few." How did
James say it? James said it something like
this, Let every man be swift to yearning, slow to speak, and
slow to wrath. I tell you, if there's ever a
time where we should be serious, it's here. If there's ever a
time that our thoughts need to be kept in check, our words need
to be correct, and our affections centered upon heaven, it's here. in this service. I was glad. Oh, I was glad. And I am too.
But I tell you, it's a solemn place among the saints. A solemn place. But it's possible for the church
to come together and do harm instead of help. That's what
was taking place in this church. When you come together instead
of the Lord being magnified, instead of the church being lifted
up, instead of sinners hearing the gospel, you come together
for the worse. And he tells us something about
it here in verse 18. Look at this. Well, first of
all, when you come together, I hear that there are divisions
among you, and I partly believe it. Here's a problem that they
had. Divisions among you. Cliques. Parties. Chisms among you. Pentecostals
like to use the Corinthian church as their example. Because they
had all of these gifts. Boy, they had gifts. They had
a bunch of gifts. They had the gift of healing.
Had the gifts of helps. The gift of government. Church
government. Man, they could set up a church
government. The gift of tongues, the gift of interpretation, the
gift of prophecy. Paul said, you came behind in
no gift. That's full of gifts. Had something
else too, didn't it? Had a bunch of other stuff too.
And right here is one of the divisions. Isn't it something
that the church that he had more problems with than any other
church was the church that had all these gifts? You know, it's not good to have
more than one tongue. I'm just convinced about that. I mean,
we've got one tongue, and how often has this one tongue got
us in all kinds of problems? And the problem that got them,
they had a whole bunch of tongues. You speak with tongues, and look
at the trouble it's got you. Man, I don't want that gift to
you. Here's the gift I want to keep this one I got brought,
if I can. There's divisions among you. And listen to some of these divisions.
Paul said, it's been declared unto me, brethren, that there
are contentions among you. And this I say, that all of you
who say, I am of Paul. Well, Paul's my preacher. I don't
want to hear anybody but Paul. And another one of you says,
Apollos is my man. I don't want to hear anybody
but Apollos. And another will say, well, I want to hear Cephas.
I ain't listening to anybody but him. And some of you are
saying, I'm of Christ. I saw Him. I heard Him preach.
Ain't nobody like Him. I don't want to hear Paul or
Paulus or Zephus. I've heard Christ. I don't need
anybody else. Paul wrote to Him. He said, Was
Paul crucified for you? Were you baptized in the name
of Paul? Divisions among you. Listen to what else he said in
chapter 3. There is among you envy and strife and divisions. Are you not carnal? and walk
as men. Listen to what he said in chapter
5 and verse 1. It's reported commonly that there's
fornication among you, among you. Such fornication that was
not so much as mentioned among the Gentiles that a man should
have his father's wife. And you want to take these people
as your example? Division. He said in chapter
6, Are any of you having a matter against another to go to law
before the unjust and not before the saints? Boy, we come here
to our text and the division reached right into this communion
service. We found it there in chapter
20 and verse 22. Some of them were poor. They
had no food to bring. The rest of them would bring
it in in huge baskets and their little clit would sit over here
in the corner and just eat and eat until their stomach was ready
to explode. You had your little ones over
here that had nothing and they left hungry. And Paul said there's
divisions even in the communion service. When you're partaking
of the Lord's Supper, there's divisions among you. I talked
with John and Alicia the other day and we were talking about
marriage. And I told them that marriage was a gift of God. It's
a gift of God. I tell you, if you've found a
woman that you love and a woman loves you, that's a gift of God.
And if you live together a few years without killing each other,
it's a miracle. Ain't it? You take a man and woman that
have lived apart, they're independent, and you bring them together in
the same house, eating at the same table, sleeping in the same
bed, usually having the same bank account, and struggling
to get along, and they can stay together and love one another
till death do they part. That's a miracle, isn't it? And
I'll tell you another miracle. To bring a group of people together
like we are tonight, month after month, year after year, and continue
to love one another and forgive one another, and be kind and
tender-hearted and long-suffering and overlook one another's faults
and lift one another up when we fail without splitting and
splintering. That's a miracle, isn't it? That's a miracle. I've never
known a church that didn't have some division, including this
one. I thank God for you folks that
you keep most of yours in your hearts. But it's there. It's
there. I hear it come out sometimes.
It slips out going, but it's there. You keep it hidden. Thank God for that. But he knows
us, doesn't he? Those little sly remarks sometimes
about somebody. Those little things that's said
that pretty much gives away how you really feel about them in
your heart. What if that began to control us? And it worked
its way out and got such divisions among us that it separated us.
When we feel that way in our hearts, you know what we should
do? Lord, cleanse me of my thoughts. You don't even want me to think
this way about my brothers and sisters. They're members of the
family. They're your family, your loved
ones. I tell you, all this division
in this church It was so contrary to the very spirit of the gospel.
Christ has made us one, hasn't he? We're one in Christ. Paul
says he's tore down this middle wall of petition between us,
and he's made peace. He's made peace between us and
God, and he's made peace between one another. We got peace, Wayne. What is there that could divide
us? if we're one in Christ. What's
worth being divided? What's worth building a wall
between us of hard feelings? Nothing. Nothing. There's churches separating everywhere.
There's churches separating just the other day about what kind
of songs they were going to sing. There's been churches separating
over what color toilet paper they were going to use. Can you
believe that? Separate over the children in
the nursery. My, my, my. If we're one in Christ, Paul
said, endeavor to keep the unity of the Spirit. That's where our
unity is. It's a spiritual unity. It's
a heart unity. And if we've got spiritual unity,
my goodness, there's no division. There shouldn't be any. Shouldn't
build up any walls. My goodness, if the Lord is our
shepherd, man, we're all sheep. Nothing worth dividing us, is
there? How in the world could I go to court with you and argue
before a judge against Glenn Whitehead, my dear brother in
Christ? How could I go to court? I ought to give my house to Glenn,
give my vehicles to Glenn. So you take it, dear brother.
I'm at peace. We're at peace, we're brothers.
I was division. That's the first thing. And something
else here in verse 19, he says this, There must also be heresies
among you, that they which are approved,
they're approved of God, they're taught of God, and they're called
of God to preach the truth and expose the heresies. The Lord even takes the wickedness
of men, the wickedness of heresies, and He turns it for His glory.
Do you notice that? Paul said there's got to be heresies
among you. There will be. There shall be
heresies among you. And God has allowed heresies
to creep in for this reason. He raises up a man to expose
it. And then you look at that man
and you say, my soul, I never knew he knew that. I never knew
that man would be raised up to do anything good, but there he
is. And God gets glory from it, doesn't He? Paul said this. He said,
Even of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse
things to draw away disciples after themselves. Of your own
selves. That's what hurts. It's of yourselves. Men that I know. Men that I preach
with, you elders of Ephesus, some of you are going to go bad.
John said they went out from us. That means they were among
us. They were not of us. They did not know the Lord that
we knew. But they were among us. And they went out from us. Teaching perverse things. And
Peter said there shall be false prophets among you. Just like there was false prophets
among the children of Israel. The Lord had twelve apostles.
One of them was a devil, a thief, a betrayer. Many walk, of whom
I've told you often, that's the tyrants among the weak, the ghosts
among the sheep. But here's what the Lord does.
He takes all this heresy and He raises up a man and He reveals
to him the truth And that man stands against the heresy. And
you just never know who the Lord's going to use, do you? You never
know who the Lord's going to use. I don't know who Joseph
of Arimathea was. He came and bagged the body,
the dead body, of the Lord Jesus from Pilate. And he took him
down from the cross and he laid him in his own tomb. I know who
came with him. Nicodemus, that self-righteous
Pharisee who was ashamed to come to the Lord of the daytime? What's
he doing now? He's begging the Body of Christ.
He comes with a hundred-pound weight of myrrh and loaves on
his shoulders, and he's there at the cross taking the Son of
God down, and his eyes are filled with tears, and his lips are
quivering. And he grasps his body that's
bloody and he takes him off and buries him. That man did that! Nobody would have suspected him
to do that, would they? The Lord told Samuel to go to
Jesse's house and he said, I got me a king and my Jesse's son.
And Jesse said, well, here they are. We got them all year. And Sammy said, well, I'll check
them over. The Lord's chosen one of them. He checked them
all over. And he said, I ain't chosen any of these fellas. I
thought he chose one of your sons. He chose the one your fellas
left out. He chose that little fella over
there on the hillside watching that bunch of sheep. Go get him.
He's the Lord's king. David. David. Raised him up to be the
shepherd of Israel. Who would have thought of such
a thing? Lord Jesus, the Gentiles are going to need an apostle.
We need somebody to instruct us. You've given twelve to the
Jews. We need one too. Oh, I've got you one. Lord, can
you give us a hint who he may be? Yeah, he's Saul of Tarsus. Lord, he hates you. He hates
us. He's killing us. You wait till
I get through with it. You wait till I get through with
it. Don't the Lord surprise us. Look at us. Who in the world
are we? I don't know how much of an education
you got. John's probably educated. I can even teach my grandkids
and help them with their homework. And here I stand. preaching to
you the gospel of the Lord God. And here you are, understanding
it and believing it, and correcting the heresies that you run up
against in this world. People like us. Who are we? Nobodies. The poor, the beige,
the nothings. And that's exactly the people
that the Lord chooses and raises among us. And you say, well,
what about Saul of Tarshish? He was a brilliant man. He was
a learned man. And he had to forget every bit
of that, didn't he? And count it all done. And go off into
Arabia for the Lord to set him down and teach him. And then
He sent him to stand against this heresy and spread the truth. It's needful. These things are
needful. And God allows this heresy that
He raises up a man and opens his heart and says, here's the
fellow that will correct this. He begins here now in verse 23
of chapter 11. In the midst of all of this heresy,
in the midst of all of this division and trouble in this church, the
Apostle Paul is going to tell these people, this church, how
to observe the Lord's table. He's not going to forbid them
to come to it. He's just going to teach them
of how to come to it, for it to be a blessing to them. And
you and I are living in troubled times, brothers and sisters.
I can speak for myself, and I can speak for you. I'm concerned
about our country. We're having trouble in our court
system. We're having trouble in our schools. We're having trouble in our homes.
I'm having trouble in my heart, aren't you? We're having troubles. But here the Lord Jesus will
teach us, even in the midst of our troubles, how to come to
this table and it be a blessing to us. We don't say we've got to get
everything straightened out. As soon as we get through these
troubles, then we'll come to the Lord's table. No. He prepares
a table before us in the presence of our enemies. And we have enemies
within us and we have enemies outside of us. But that's not
going to stop us from coming to the Lord's table and partaking
of this cup and partaking of this bread, our Lord's Body.
We just need to know how to do it in the midst of our trouble. Notice how the Apostle Paul says
it here in verse 23. For I have received of Peter
how I ought to do this. And John
instructed me to tell you to do it this way." Aren't you glad
he didn't say that? Aren't you glad Paul said, I
received of the Lord? You see, the Jewish church had
been doing this all along. They started right off the bat
when the Lord instituted it. that night that he was betrayed,
and they kept on doing it. The Jewish church did. I just
wonder if the Gentile church even believed that they should
be doing it. That's a Jewish ordinance. But not anymore. It's a church ordinance. I don't
care if you're a Jew. I don't care if you're a Gentile.
If you're in the body of Christ, this is for you. And he comes
here to Paul and he says, Paul, you don't have to go to Peter.
You don't have to go to John. I'm going to reinstitute afresh. I'm going to institute afresh
this ordinance in the Gentile church. And he comes to Paul
and he says, you tell the churches to do it just like this. I imagine this is the very same
way that the Jewish church did it too. But here's the way he
tells the Gentiles to do it. Now, why is that important? Why
is that important? Well, I tell you, there are some
people who got themselves in trouble because they came to
the Lord's table in an improper manner. Real trouble. Real trouble. They brought the
judgment of the Lord upon them. Some of them were chastened to
death because they didn't do this rightly. This is so important
that we come here to the instructions that the Apostle Paul gives us
and do this just like we're instructed to do it. We've had now for quite
some time, I don't know where this came from. It didn't come
from the Bible. It came from a misunderstanding
of the Bible. We were in a church in the Free
Will Baptist when I was growing up that washed feet. Some of you may have been in
that, too. I don't get on anybody for washing their feet. If you
want to wash somebody's feet, that's good, but not at this service. It wasn't instituted here. It has nothing to do with this
service. When I read that, did you see feet washing in here?
It is and isn't. Don't go over there in John 13
and 14 and try to say, well, it happened here. It didn't happen
up there. But come here and here it is
so plain. You don't see foot washing in
any place. It's something that's been added
and it's wrong. Don't do it. Don't do it. My dad's told me some horror
stories about when they used to wash feet. Kids slipping. and putting coal dust in people's
socks and things like that. Just a joke. It turned into a
joke. And then you've got Catholicism. They've taken away from this.
They say, well, we're not going to give the cup anymore. You
go down and you get a little wafer from the priest, but you
don't get the cup. Have you noticed that? They eliminated
the cup. Where did they get their authority
for that? We do it just like this. Well, somebody said, you
know, we're living in a different time. Time doesn't change the
truth. Men's opinions doesn't change
the truth. We're to practice this just as
the Apostle Paul instructed us to, and we're never to change
it until the Lord As oft as you eat this bread
and drink this cup, you show the Lord's death for how long?
Till He come. Till He come. He hasn't come
yet, has He? So we'll just keep on doing it
the very same way that our Master told Paul to have us to do it. In the last portion of verse
23, look at these three things. This is very touching to our
hearts. For I have received of the Lord
that which I delivered unto you, that the Lord Jesus, the same
night in which He was betrayed." Ain't that amazing? He was betrayed. Betrayed by
a man who pretended to be His friend. One of you shall betray
me. Betrayed him for thirty pieces
of silver. Betrayed him with a kiss. Betrayed
the Son of God. And notice the time that he was
betrayed. At night. The very night in which
he was betrayed. Can you imagine being in that
upper room? The candles around the wall and
the lanterns on the table. The shadows. of those men dancing
on the walls. And here you heard the footsteps
of a man walking on the brick, going to get his bag of filthy
lucre to betray the Son of God. It was night. Our fears are exaggerated
at night, aren't they? Oh, he was betrayed at night. And notice thirdly this, our
Lord Jesus The same night in which he was betrayed, he was
so anxious and so troubled, and yet he took the time to institute
this love feast for his church. Of all the things he could have
talked about, and all the things that he did, he took the time
to take this spread and say, eat, this is my body. He took
time to take the cup and say, this is my blood of the new covenant. Do ye this, as oft as ye do it,
in remembrance of me. How important this service must
be to Him. And therefore, how important
it must be to us. The same night in which He was
portrayed. And notice what He says here
in verse 24. Every word means something, doesn't it? And when
He had given, thanks. He'd given thanks. There's a
certain amount of grief that comes with this service. I realize
that. There has to be. When we think of Him giving Himself
for us, and the cause of it all, my sin, my cruel sin, His chief
tormentors were. There has to be a certain amount
of bitterness to go with this. I know that. But you know something,
brothers and sisters? This is a service of thanksgiving. Oh, Father, thank You for sending
us this thing. Lord Jesus, thank You for Your
body that was broken. Thank You for Your blood that
was poured out. We thank Him for it. He had given
thanks. And notice this. He break it.
He'd break it. That's so important, isn't it?
He didn't hand the whole pawn of bread to them. He'd break
it. He'd break it. It's not a living
Christ that redeemed us. It's a dying Christ. It's not
a whole Christ, but a broken Christ that saves us from our
sin and the awful judgment He break it. He break it. And notice
this. And He said, Take. Take. Take it. Take it. Take it into your hand. Take
it into your mouth. Let it become yours. And eat
it. Eat it. Let it go down into your
belly. It becomes a part of you. It
becomes one with you and you become one with it. And what
is this? This is my body which is broken
for you. Was it literally his body? This
is my body that's broken? Why, no. His body was sitting
right there in front of him and probably didn't have a scratch
on it. But what he's saying, this bread that's broken, it
represents my body. It's broken. Boy, he knew what
he was going to suffer, didn't he? It's broken. At the judgment
hall, oh, they broke him. They broke him. They broke him. They took a whip with bones in
it. They plowed upon his back. They took their strong hands
and they got a tight hold of his beard and they plucked it
from his face. They slapped him. They blacked
his eyes. They broke him. They bruised
him. And there on the cross they laid Him down and drove nails
through His palms and nails through His feet. And they stood Him
up and jammed Him down in that hole. And there He hanged. And He said, all my bones are
out of joint. I am poured out like water. You
brought Me into the dust of death. He was a broken man. And He knew it was coming. That's
why He broke this bread and said, this is my body. Take my body. Take that which represents my
body and take it into yourself. Take this cup of the fruit of
the vine and drink it. It's my atoning blood. I shed
it for you. It's for you. Do it in remembrance
of my love for you. Someone said this is a memorial
to the death of Christ. But this is not to a dead Christ. He lives, don't He? We're here
to remember His death, but He's not dead. He ever lives at the
right hand of God. Look in verse 27 and verse 29
quickly. the proper attitude of coming
to the Lord's table. Who should come? Who should come? Therefore, whosoever shall eat
this bread and drink this cup of the Lord unworthily in an
unworthily manner shall be guilty of the body and blood of the
Lord. But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread
and drink of that cup. For he that eats and drinks in
an unworthily manner eats and drinks judgment to himself, not
discerning the Lord's body." Who should come? The church, for a long, long
time, holds the three methods of coming
to the Lord's table. Some hold what has been called
open communion. And that means anybody that professes
the Lord Jesus Christ can come. You come in here, you profess
Christ, you come to the communion. Some have really, really open
communion. I was watching Some transvestites
that got into the Catholic church, maybe you saw this, and the priest
was standing there handing out wafers, putting it on their tongue,
and these transvestites come in, dressed up black women. He
just took the wafer and put it on their tongue. That's pretty
much too open, ain't it? Pretty much too open. Anybody who professes, anybody
who wants it, it's wide open. And then, you go to the opposite
of that, is what some call closed communion. And that means it's closed to
everybody but members of that particular congregation, local
congregation. And sometimes it's really closed. It's only members of that congregation
who are in good standing with that congregation. And that's
fine. That's fine. I've got nothing
wrong with that. But here's the one I like. Here's the one I
like. Close. Close commitment. It's not wide open with just
anybody. But it's not shutting those out
who belong to Christ, who want to come. I remember Brother Mahan
told one time about his dad. When his dad was still living,
his dad lived somewhere down south. And he came up to Ashland
where Henry was pastoring. And they had closed communion. Just that congregation was the
only one that could drink the cup and eat the bread. Henry
said his dad was sitting on the front row. And they came to him
and just went around him, passed him by. And said on the way home
he noticed his dad was crying. And he said, Dad, what's wrong? He said, why can't I come to
the Lord's table? Why can't I come to the Lord's
table? And Henry said there he realized
that open communion could be too open. Closed communion could
be too closed. But close communion. Close communion. A guarded communion. Let me deal
with that just for a minute. Let me explain it to you this
way. This is the most serious and solemn thing that you and
I are ready to do, partaking of the Lord's blood. That's serious. That's solemn. If you participate
in this service in an unworthy manner, without giving serious
thought to it, as to what this cup and this broken bread represents,
you can bring the judgment of God upon yourself. That's how
serious this is. No man is worthy to partake of
Christ and the benefits of His death. When you read this word,
worthily, it doesn't mean that they weren't worthy in and of
themselves. No man is worthy of the death
of Christ. No man is worthy of forgiveness. No man is worthy
of life eternal. It's only those who know themselves
to be unworthy that are fit to come to this table. But this
year means in an unworthy manner. And first of all, no lost person
can come to this table in a worthy manner. If you don't know the Lord Jesus
Christ, How can you remember Him? If you're dead in your sins,
how could you love Him and remember His death? If you're lost, how
can you even know that He died for you? If you don't have the spirit
of life, if you don't have the spirit of discernment, how can
you possibly discern what's going on in this earth? If you're unregenerated, if you
don't have the life of Christ in you, don't dare come to this
table. That's what we mean by close
communion. If you're unconverted, if you're
unsaved, don't dare take of this bread and drink this wine. You're
inviting the judgment of God. You're guilty of the body and
blood of Jesus Christ. That's what the apostles said.
When Bob brings the tray around to you, Just don't take it. Don't take it. You say, well, Bruce, it may
be embarrassing. I tell you, I'd rather be embarrassed as
to have the judgment of God come on me. That's what we say to the unconverted.
We also, we also teach the saved. We guard this table to the saved. We say here with the Apostle
Paul, as he said to the believers at Corinth, examine yourself. Can you discern in your heart
what this bread and this cup represents? You don't believe this is the
real body of Christ. You don't believe this is the
real blood of Christ. You don't dare do that. What
does it represent to you? Do you see the necessity of the
broken body of Christ and the shed blood of Christ? Do you
see the necessity of that? Is your faith in this Christ
who died and reconciled you to God? Can you remember His death
with love and appreciation in your heart to Him? If so, Then Paul said, eat of
this bread. Drink of this cup. It's yours
freely. It's yours as freely as He offered
it. Take and eat, and it will be
a blessing to you. But if you cannot eat and drink
in the manner that He's prescribed unto us, then whether you're
a saint or a sinner, Don't eat. Don't eat. Brothers and sisters, of all
the things that you and I could be thinking about tonight, and
of all the things that we could set our memory upon, clear our
minds of all that. Don't let your mind drift away
for a thought. When you put this bread in your
mouth and you put this cup to your lips, Let your affections
and let your thoughts and let your memory be upon one thing.
The death of your Lord on your behalf. And God help us. God give us grace to do that. Let's pray.