Open your Bibles with me to the
book of 1 Corinthians. Some of you who maybe have been attending here a little less time than some
of the rest of us are not acquainted with the origin of these linens that were used for the
Lord's table, and you may feel it's a little maybe out of character for my
type of message and ministry, but there's a story behind these
cloths that you see here. I was in Mexico, Brother Charlie Payne
and I were down there ten, twelve, thirteen years ago or more. And
we were out in this little village called Teya, T-E-Y-A, where a
man has been the pastor for a long, long time, Brother Moximo. And they were having the Lord's
Table that night that we were there to preach. And it's such a poor village
in such a drab building with dirt floors. And the people,
the poor people came and the lights were so dim. I don't remember
whether we had one of those lanterns or candles or what, but it was
just a sort of drab surrounding, but it was such a blessed and
precious service. And right up there on the table
were the plates and the vessels with the wine. And covering those
vessels was a cloth just like this. And I thought it was so
beautiful and so impressive. And I asked the pastor, I said,
where did you get that? And he said, Victoria. made it
herself over to her house. Victoria was one of the faithful
ladies, I suppose, in her early 60s, late 50s, early 60s. Beautiful, beautiful Mayan Indian
lady who loved the gospel. Oh, how she loved the gospel.
One time when we were there, she made a cake for us and welcomed
American brothers, you know, and things like that. And so
I asked her to come down and show me the cloth after the service
and tell me about it and said she made it. I said, you wouldn't
make us a cloth like that at 13th Street, would you? So we
could use it at the Lord's table. She said, I'd be happy to. So
she's speaking Spanish and Walter was translating for me. She doesn't
speak English. Well, Victoria, the next time
we went down a year later, We went out to the little church
and she proudly presented us this that she made with her own
hands and spent many hours on it. And she passed away not too
long after that. And it's just special to me.
We've been using it now, Russell, for years, haven't we? When the folks come in and see
it here, they think, well, what's he got that up there for, you
know? Well, it's symbolic of a woman's love
for Christ and love for the Lord's people. And she's gone on to
be with the Lord Jesus now, but we have something here in her
memory. And it just represents all those
dear people down there whom the Lord has blessed through the
ministry of the Groovers and the Pledgers and the Howards
to come to know the Lord Jesus Christ. And it's meaningful to
me, and I think to many of you all, the fact that she made it. It was an act of love and a work
of love, and she presented it to us. So that's what we have
here. All right, 1 Corinthians 11.
Let's read verses 23 through 28. 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 he 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,
covenant in my blood. This do ye, as oft as ye drink
it in remembrance of me. For as often as ye eat this bread,
and drink this cup, ye 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. We gather this evening to observe
the Lord's table. And the first thing I see here
in verse 23 that Paul has written to us, he said, he tells us where
he received this ordinance. He said, I have received of the
Lord that which I delivered unto you. Our Lord ordained this table. Our Lord himself ordained this
table. We're doing what the Lord Jesus
Christ ordained for us to do, what he instructed us to do. Let me show you this. Turn to
Luke 22. Luke 22, yes. Now use your Bible
with me tonight and let's look at these scriptures. Luke 22,
verse 14. Our Lord ordained this table. He says in verse 14 of Luke 22,
And when the hour was come, he sat down and the twelve apostles
with him, and he said, With desire I have desired to eat this Passover
with you before I suffer. 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, this is
the first Lord's table, he took the cup and he gave thanks and
he said, take this and divide it among yourselves. 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. And he gave it to them, saying,
this is my body, which is given for you. This doing remembrance
of me. So Paul over here in our text
says, I receive this from the Lord. He ordained this supper. He himself presided over the
first Lord's table. And he tells them why to observe
it. He said, do this. Why take this bread and this
wine? Do it in remembrance of me. That's why you're to do it.
And he tells them what to do. He said, this do, in remembrance
of me. Now read on, verse 23. He said,
I received it from the Lord, that which I also... What I'm
leading in tonight, as the pastor, I'm leading this service, this
worship service, this observance of the Lord's table, and Paul
was leading it here, and he said, what I'm delivering to you, Christ
gave me. He, I received this from the
Lord, I delivered it to you. Now, that the Lord Jesus, the
same night in which he was betrayed, took bread. Now what was he doing
here, this particular night? Well, with his disciples, he
was observing the Passover. That's what they were doing there.
He told his disciples back there in Luke 22, he said, with desire
I have desired to eat this Passover with you. They were observing
the Passover. Now, let's go to Exodus 12, and
let's look for a moment at this Passover. The Passover was observed
every year. It was kept every year. The first
Passover was when the Lord told them, And let's quit saying the
death angel went through Egypt. Let's just don't say that anymore.
The Bible doesn't say that. The Lord said, I'm going to pass
through Egypt, and I'm going to smite the firstborn. The Lord
brings judgment upon unbelievers. And he told Israel to take a
lamb. You know about that, without spot or blemish, and put it up
and observe it. And then a lamb of the first
year, and slay that lamb, roast its body with fire, and eat eat
the flesh of the lamb, all of it, put the blood on the door.
And he said, look now, in Exodus 12 verse 21, Exodus 12, then
Moses called for all the elders of Israel and said to them, now
draw out and take your lamb according to your families and kill the
Passover. You shall take a bunch of hyssop and dip it in the blood
that's in the basin, and strike the lintel in the two side posts
with the blood that's in the basin. And none of you shall
go out at the door of his house until the morning, for the Lord
will pass through to smite the Egyptians. And when the Lord
sees the blood upon the lintel and on the two side posts, the
Lord will pass over the door and will not suffer the destroyer
to come in into your houses to smite you. And you shall observe
this thing for an ordinance to thee and to thy sons forever. And it shall come to pass, when
ye be come to the land which the Lord will give you, according
as he hath promised, that ye shall keep this service. And
it shall come to pass, when your children say to you, What mean
ye by this service, this Passover, eating the lamb, killing the
lamb, eating the body, and offering the blood, a sacrifice? It's
the sacrifice of the Lord's Passover, who passed over the houses of
the children of Israel in Egypt, and smote the Egyptians, and
delivered our houses, and the people bowed their heads and
worshipped. So the Lord is observing the
Passover of his disciples. This is the last Passover. I know the Orthodox Jews and
folks like that who did not believe Christ, did not receive Christ,
they went on going through the motions of Passover, but this
was the last one. This was the last one God honored. This was the last one truly observed. Now, at this Passover, it says
here, verse 23, the Lord Jesus, the same night in which he was
betrayed, took bread. And he gave thanks. This is not
a funeral, it's a feast. He gave thanks. We rejoice. We rejoice as we come to this
supper. We rejoice and thank God. We
give thanks. Oh, how many things we have for
which to praise him and thank him. His covenant mercies. His
elective grace. His incarnation, He became a
man. His sacrifice on Calvary. His
resurrection. His ascension, His intercession. His full and free salvation.
He took bread and He said, what's this? And He break it. And He
said, take it. Take it. You take it. This is
an act of faith. You take it. And you eat it.
I know God chose us. God made a covenant of mercy,
and God called us, and God saved us. But when He took this bread
and break it, symbolic of His body being broken for us, He
was wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities, the
chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and He broke the bread
as His body would be smitten and broken on that tree. And
he said, you take it. You take it. I attended a mass
one time when I was in the Navy. They had some of you fellas may
have done this when you're in the service. I was ignorant.
I didn't know any better. But I went to some kind of religious
service and there was a priest, a Catholic priest, who was officiating. And he had a helper and they
They had this cup of wine, and they had these wafers, and there
were hundreds of servicemen there, just hundreds of us, and they
instructed us that they were going to give us communion. They were going to give us communion. So we all came down there by
row, one row after another, and we'd all kneel down here. Oh,
I knelt right down there with the rest of them. I didn't know
any better. And this priest came by, and
this helper held those those, that plate with all those wafers
on it, and the priest had to cut, and we was all lined up
there, and everybody stuck their tongue out. Like that, you know,
you was on your knees, your hand behind you, with your tongue
out. And he came by, and he'd get
one of those wafers and dip it and slap it on the tongue, like
that. When I was doing that, I thought, something's wrong
with this, you know, I mean, this, this is, this is, And that's
what our Lord said, we don't give you communion, we don't
give you, you take it. An act of faith, I take this
bread. It's available, it's provided
by His grace. And He makes you willing, I know
that. But there's an act of faith in this thing. When we come and
we sit together and these men serve the table, Consciously,
willingly, lovingly, thankfully, with gratitude in my heart, I
take and I eat. Just like Israel slew the lamb
and roasted it, and they took it and ate it, all of it, didn't
they, John? And they took that blood and they put it on the
door. I know God made a difference
between Israel and Egypt. God made a difference. And God
led them to slay that lamb and put that blood. But bless your
heart, they put it there. And if they didn't put it there,
you know what happened. That's just right. And then it says in verse 25,
it says, And after the same manner he took the cup, when he had
supped, saying, This cup is a new testament in my blood, this do
you as often as you drink it in remembrance of me. He said, this is my body. Now
let's take our minds back to when he was sitting there with
his disciples, here all of them are, and our Lord. He takes this
bread, common, ordinary bread, unleavened bread, because leaven
is a type of sin. And when we observe the Lord's
table, we don't use regular bread with yeast and leaven, we use
unleavened bread. Our Lord had a perfect body,
and we can find unleavened bread, we will, or bake it, you can
get it. And wine is pure, it's His blood. His blood is pure. This bread, we keep back there,
you've had some of it for months, haven't you? And it just, here
it is, you know, it doesn't deteriorate, it doesn't have that decaying
factor, whatever. And so we saw their bread, he
break it, and he said, this is my body. Now, they've got a doctrine
they call transubstantiation, where they say that this, the
Catholics say this, this bread and this wine actually becomes,
actually becomes the body and blood of Christ. That's the reason
that they teach this is a sacrament. They teach this is a saving ordinance,
that when he gives you that Bread. He's giving you the body, the
literally, literally, the body of Christ. And this wine is literally
the blood of Christ. That's not true. Because when
our Lord gave that bread to his disciples, his body was standing
right there in front of them. That wasn't his body. This was
his body. Isn't that right? When he handed
them the cup of wine, he said, this is my blood. His blood was
still in his veins, standing there before them. It hadn't
even been shed. It hadn't even been shed. What
he's saying is, this represents my body, broken for you. This
symbolic represents my blood. See that? A lot of people died
over that doctrine. They fought over that for years.
And a lot of people were burned at the stake because they refused
to bow to that terrible, terrible doctrine. But this bread, His
common, ordinary bread, without leaven, represents our Lord who
had a common, ordinary body of flesh. And this wine, pure wine,
represents His blood, which had no sin. And He said, now, He
said, You take it. And He said, This do. Now, there's
an important thing. Now, He says that two or three
times. This do. This do ye. It's simple. this too, bread
and wine. Martha's not over there playing
the organ softly so we can have an atmosphere. He didn't have
an atmosphere. There wasn't anybody playing
music when he was giving them to the Lord's table. You see,
people today want to dress up and doctor up and complicate
worship. And he said this too, simple,
there's no candles burning, there's no chanting going on, there's
There's no uniforms. There's no special signs. It's
not a sacrament. And it's for all believers. This
do, in simplicity, bread and wine alone. It is a memorial. Drink ye all of it, he said. All of you who are believers. There was one old Puritan years
ago who went to see one of the priests in his community, and
he said, do you teach that that wine in the cup actually becomes
the blood of Christ? When you bless it, when you say
these words, it becomes the blood of Christ. He said, yes. He said,
I brought along one of the neighborhood boys, And I want you to bless
that wine and make it the blood of Christ and then let him drink
the entire glass." And the priest objected because
he knew if the boy drank the entire glass of wine, he'd get
drunk. And it couldn't be the blood
of Christ. The blood of Christ make nobody drunk. And so the
priest refused and they had quite a confrontation. over that, it's
spread over the community. But it represents his body and
his blood. Now watch this. He said, this
do in remembrance of me. In remembrance of me. Is it possible
for us to forget our Lord? No, sir. No, sir, it's not possible
for us to forget him, but it's possible for us to neglect, to
neglect the relationship. That's right. It's possible, we're human. And
I'll tell you this, someone said this to me years ago. He said,
what our problem is, is he seems so far away, and all these other
distractions are so close. Isn't that right? All these other
distractions, which are detrimental, these objects which are detrimental
to my relationship with Christ, they are so near. They're so near, and they take
my attention away. So he said, as often as you eat
this bread and drink this cup, you show my death till I come. This do in remembrance of me. And he doesn't tell us when to
do it. He just says as often as you do. There's no certain
time. There's no schedule. But we do it in remembrance of
him, remembering who he is. Remembering what he did, remembering
why he did it. He died just for the unjust to
bring us to God. And remembering where he is now. He's not in this, these elements. He's at the right hand of the
Father. And I take these elements because he is at the right hand
of the Father. He's my hope. My foundation. And he said, now
watch this. Verse 26, and as often as you
eat this bread and drink this cup, you do show, you do show
the Lord's death till he comes. Three things about that. You
show his actual death. This bread represents his body, this wine
represents his blood, but it separates. And I tell you, when you separate
the blood from the body, he's dead. He died. And that's what we're showing,
his death. When we take the bread, which
is his body, and then at another time take the wine, which is
his blood, we're saying that on the cross, he shed his blood. And that blood and that body,
for a while, were separated, and he died for us, his death. Sin, when it's finished, brings
forth death. We're the ones that deserve to
die. But he died. And I'm showing here that he
died. And the second thing I'm showing
is this. I'm showing when I take this bread, eat this bread and
drink this wine, I'm showing I believe he died for me. I'm
showing that my faith in him, in him alone. I wouldn't toy
with this. I wouldn't make a pretense. This
is too solemn and serious for me to pretend anything. So when
I actually, when these men put this before me, and I'll take
you, I'm showing that I believe he died for my sins. I'm showing
that to you, and you, and to God, and to myself, to everybody
else. And thirdly, we show his redemptive work to our children
and our loved ones. What mean ye by this service?
was showing the Lord's death. And then he said, you do it till
I come. The Lord's table now is observed till he comes again. We won't need it anymore. It's
stopped. But I pray it'll go on here,
just this way, till he comes. And your children will keep it
up. Us old folks will be with him, eating it in the kingdom
of God. But our children will till he
comes. Now here's a word of caution. in verse 28. But let a man examine
himself. Let a man examine himself individually. This is not a church social.
It's not a church supper. It's a solemn, serious time.
It's not a religious ritual. But let a man examine himself.
What do I examine myself for? Well, I'm a sinner. I'm a sinner. A hopeless Father
said in Ephesians, without help, without hope, without God in
this world, born in Adam. And I need three things. I'm
preaching on, I preached this on television last night. I need
three things. I need the forgiveness of my
sins. I need a righteousness before God. And I need a way
open for me to approach God. And here it all is right here.
His blood cleanses me from all my sins. He died that I might
be made the righteousness of God in Him. And He said, damn,
He's opened for us into the presence of God a new and living way by
His blood and His flesh. So here I have all I need, forgiveness,
holiness, and the way opened into the presence
of Almighty God. Let a man examine himself. Not
in order not to eat, but let him examine himself, and so let
him eat. Eat that bread and drink that
cup. All right. God bless you as you receive
the table.