I'm going to bring a message
today on the subject, the Lord's Table. I'll be using for my text
the book of Luke chapter 22, verse 19 and 20, Luke 22, 19
and 20. Now it says, and the Lord Jesus
took bread and gave thanks and break it. And he gave it to his
disciples, saying, This is my body, which is broken for you. This do in remembrance of me. Likewise also the cup after supper,
saying, This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is shed for
you. This do in remembrance of me. Now in this 22nd chapter of the
book of Luke, it was the day of the Passover. It was the day
before our Lord suffered on the cross. And he met with his disciples
in the upper room to observe the Passover feast. Israel had
observed this Passover feast for hundreds and hundreds of
years on once every year they observe the Passover feast. And
on this occasion, our Lord indicated to His disciples that this would
be the last Passover, the very last Passover ever observed by
believers. No more would they keep the Passover
feast. No more would men of faith, men
looking to God, looking for redemption, keep the Passover feast. It started
in Egypt And it continued to this day when our Lord met in
the upper room with His disciples to observe this Passover feast.
And He indicated to them that the Passover will never, ever,
ever be observed again by believers in the Lord Jesus Christ. For
as Paul said in I Corinthians 5, 7, why is this? Christ, our Passover, is sacrificed
for us. And our Lord instituted at this
time what we call the Lord's table, the table of the Lord. That was when it was instituted,
right here at this present time. And from this point, from this
point, our Lord said, till he comes, till his second coming,
till his return, from this point until he comes again, believers
would observe the Lord's table, not necessarily once a year.
But as often as they observe it, they show the Lord's death
until He comes. Now, this is what Paul is saying
in I Corinthians 11. I'd like for you to take your
Bibles and turn with me to the 11th chapter of I Corinthians,
verse 23. Now, listen to the Apostle Paul.
The Apostle Paul is writing to the church at Corinth, and this
is what he said. For I have received of the Lord. I got this from the Lord. You
know, he said on another occasion, I didn't get my gospel from a
man. I didn't receive it from men.
I received it directly from God. And here the Apostle Paul said,
I have received of the Lord that which I delivered unto you, unto
the church, that the Lord Jesus, the same night in which he was
betrayed by Judas, took bread, and when he had given thanks,
he break the bread, and gave it to his disciples, and he said,
Take, eat. This is my body, which is broken
for you. This do, this do, not this and
something else, but this, simple unleavened bread, prepared, broken,
blessed, and eaten. This do, in remembrance of me. After the same manner, he took
the cup of wine, which when he had sucked, saying, This cup
is the new covenant in my blood, and this do, eat this bread,
and drink this cup, as oft as you eat it and drink it, in remembrance
of me." In remembrance of me. He keeps saying that. For as
often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you do show the
Lord's death until He come. Now, are you with me? Are you
thinking? You'll better understand the table of the Lord if you
know something about this Passover. Our Lord had met together with
His disciples to observe the Passover. And on this very night,
our Lord said, No more Passover. No more Passover. From this point
on, the Lord's table. And He took bread. At the Passover,
they always had unleavened bread. And he took this bread, and that
unleavened bread reveals the purity of the life of our Lord
Jesus Christ. And there's no reason why the
Lord's table should not be observed with unleavened bread. It is
accessible. It is attainable. And he took
this bread, unleavened bread, and he broke it, signifying the
breaking of his body, his own suffering. And he broke it, blessed
it, and gave it to his disciples, and he said, eat this bread.
This bread is symbolic of and represents my body, which is
broken for you, which suffered on the cross for you. And you
do this in remembrance of me. And then he took the cup, cup
of fermented wine, which also shows the purity of our Lord
Jesus Christ, the purity of his life. Unleavened bread will not
spoil. It has no yeast. And wine will
not spoil. You can sit around for days or
months or years. It'll never spoil. Our Lord was
a perfect life. He had no sin in His blood, no
sin in His mind, no sin in His heart, no sin anywhere about
Him. He was pure and perfect. And He took that wine and He
said, this is symbolic. It represents My blood, which
is shed for you, the new covenant, new testament in My blood, which
is shed for you. Now drink it. And all of you
drink it. This do in remembrance of me.
And as often as you eat that bread and drink that wine, you
show several things, but particularly you show my death, my substitutionary
death, my sacrificial death, my death as a sin offering and
a savior. You show my death for you, my
body broken for you, my blood shed for you. You show it till
I come again. Now, what is the Passover? You
see, this thing is so connected. The Passover leaves off, the
Lord's table takes up. Paul said, Christ, our Lord,
met to eat the Passover with His disciples. He instituted
the Lord's table. No more Passover from now on
the Lord's table. And then Paul said, Christ, our
Passover is sacrifice for us. Well, what is the Passover? Well,
Israel, now listen carefully. There's so many questions about
the Lord's table and there's so many errors today. It's a
simple feast. It's a simple memorial. There's
no reason why anyone should be confused. There's no reason why
there should be any questions raised. Our Lord gave two simple
elements, bread and wine, which show that He was actually made
flesh and dwelt among us. Bread is a very common, everyday
thing. Here we have it on there. Wine
is a common, everyday thing. And our Lord took these common
elements. You don't have to go to Timbuktu to get bread or wine.
It's here. It's among you. It's about you. It's around you. There it is.
This do. It's very simple. This do. Not
this and something else or not something else. There are no
candles. There are no robes. There's no paraphernalia. There's
no processional. There's no mumbo-jumbo. There's
no religious ritual. This do. Bread and wine. This
do in remembrance of me. Now, what is the Passover? Well,
Israel, God's nation, was in Egypt. They were in bondage.
They were in slavery. They'd been there 400 years.
And God would deliver them from Egypt. He would deliver them
with a mighty hand out of Egypt. What's this saying? Well, Israel
in Egypt is a picture of us in sin, in bondage, in slavery to
sin, under the curse of the law. And as God delivered Israel,
they couldn't deliver themselves, nor can we deliver ourselves.
They're in sin. They were in Egypt. We're in
sin. They were in bondage. We're in bondage to sin, the
captivity of the law. They couldn't deliver themselves,
but God could deliver them. And He would deliver them powerfully
and supernaturally with a mighty hand by His grace and by His
power. See, salvation is deliverance.
Salvation is not just a profession or turning over a new leaf or
joining a church. It's deliverance. It's a great
and mighty and powerful deliverance of God. It's a miracle work of
God within. It's delivering from the kingdom
of darkness to the kingdom of God's dear Son, from Egypt to
Canaan. And then, and God was going to
deliver them out of Egypt and He said to Moses, tonight I will
pass through the land of Egypt. And I don't know where people
get this death angel idea. He didn't say a death angel would
pass through Egypt. He said, I will. I'll pass through
the land of Egypt. And he said, every firstborn
in every home will die, even the cattle on the hillside, from
Pharaoh's palace down to the prison. The firstborn son in
every home will die under the judgment and wrath and anger
of the holy God. He told His people, Israel, He
said, take every man a lamb, a lamb for a house. If the house
is too big for a lamb, let two households go together. Better
take a lamb of the first year, not to be an old lamb, an old
sickly lamb, an old dying lamb. It's to be a young lamb in the
prime of life of the first year, a male. Also, that lamb was to
be without spot or blemish, no sickness, no disease, no mark
at all. You'd take that lamb and keep
it up in a pen for four days and observe it and make sure
there's nothing, there's no flaw, nothing wrong with it. It's a
perfect lamb. Then you'd kill that lamb in
the evening and roast its body with fire and eat the body. Eat it with unleavened bread.
Eat it with bitter herbs. Eat it with your shoes on your
feet. Eat it with your bags packed. We're leaving this place. And
take the blood. and put it on the doorpost and
the lintel. And when I see the blood, I'll
pass over you." That's the Passover. When I see the blood, I'll pass
over you. The Lord came through Egypt that
night and He visited every home with judgment and wrath and death. But where the blood was found
on the door, He passed over and spared the firstborn. the blood
maketh atonement for the soul. And the Lord told the children
of Israel to observe that Passover feast at this particular time
of year every year, every year, to commemorate the Lord's deliverance,
the Lord's deliverance out of Egypt. They would remember their
deliverance through the Passover lamb. But that Passover lamb
says something else. It says God's lamb God's Passover
lamb, the Lord Jesus Christ, would come and deliver all His
people, all His sheep of all generations from all their sins. He is our Passover. He is our
Passover who has sacrificed for us. You see, like Israel was
down in Egypt, in bondage and slavery and inability, the Scripture
says the wages of sin is death. We're in captivity to sin. The
soul that sinneth shall surely die. Sin, when it's finished,
bringeth forth death. But Christ, our Passover, is
sacrificed for us." We have a Passover lamb. And let me show you, as
we look back at Egypt and the Israelites slaying that lamb
that night, putting the blood on the door, let's see how that
represents the Lord Jesus Christ. First of all, Israel was to take
a lamb. Well, Christ is our lamb. He's
called the Lamb of God throughout the Word. You remember in John
1, 29, John the Baptist pointed to Him and said, Behold, the
Lamb of God. Isaiah said, He has led as a
lamb to the slaughter, as a sheep before her shearers is done,
so He opened not His mouth. In the book of Revelation, even
John on the Isle of Patmos, writing about things to come, said, I
saw a lamb. I saw a lamb as it had been slain. in the midst of the throne. Christ
is our Lamb, sacrificed for us. So we have picked the Lamb by
God's grace, and that Lamb is the Lord Jesus Christ. And then
Israel's Lamb was to be without spot or blemish. And so is our
Lamb without spot or blemish. It pictures Christ. He is the
God-man. He knew no sin. He was tempted
as we are in every point, and yet without sin. He had no sin. He knew no sin. He did no sin.
He was perfect without spot or blemish. And then Israel's lamb
was to be a young lamb of the first year. Even so, in the prime
of life, our Lord was in the prime of life. He wasn't old.
He was young, 33 years old when he went to that cross and died.
And then Israel's lamb was to be kept up four days and observed. Our Lord lived on this earth
33 years and was tested and tried in every point, tried by men,
tried by demons, tried by the archenemy himself, tried by God,
and always proved perfect without spot or blemish. That's the reason
the righteousness He provided for us is perfect righteousness
because He's perfect. And then Israel's Lamb was slain.
and our lamb was slain. Israel's lamb was roasted with
fire. Our lamb was roasted with the
fire of God's wrath on Calvary's cross. Israel's lamb shed its
blood, and our lamb shed his blood. He shed his blood for
the remission of our sins. Israel, by faith, put that blood
on the lintel and the two-side post because God said, it's the
blood that maketh atonement for the soul. When I see the blood,
I'll pass over you." And by faith, we look to the blood of Jesus
Christ. I preached a message just recently on this station
from 1 Peter 1, 18, 19. We know that we're redeemed,
not with corruptible things such as silver and gold from our vain
conversation received by tradition from our fathers, but with the
precious blood of Christ, the precious blood of Christ. You
see, we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of
sins. His blood maketh atonement at one moment for our souls. In Christ we have the atonement
once and for all. By one offering He has perfected
forever them that are sanctified. His blood cleanseth us from all
sin. His blood reconciles us to God.
His blood has perfected us. His blood is applied in heaven.
That's right, the Scripture says, He enters not into the holy place
made with hands, with the blood of others, but He entered into
heaven itself with His own precious blood, and there obtained eternal
redemption for us, and opened for us a way into the holiest
by His blood before the very throne of grace, that every believer
who is unto God through the blood of Christ, a king and a priest,
may offer spiritual sacrifices of praise and faith. This, then,
is the Lord's table. That's what our Lord's saying.
The Passover's done. The Lamb's finished. God's Lamb
is here. And the blood of the Lamb in
the Old Testament has fulfilled what it was given to do, point
to Christ. No more Passover sacrifices, no more Passover feasts. That's
the Lord's table. He's our Lamb of sacrifice and
suffering. He's our Lamb of sin offering
and substitute. He's our Savior who enables God
to be just and justifier. The pattern is fulfilled and
the Lord Jesus has perfectly fulfilled it. And the Lord's
table, my friends, listen to me. It's not a sacrament. It has no saving power. These
elements have no saving power. The bread is just bread. That's
all. It doesn't become the body of
Christ. It represents the body of Christ. The wine is just wine. You could drink a gallon of it.
And it'd make you drunk. If it was the blood of Christ,
it wouldn't. You see, if that wine was changed into the blood
of Christ, it certainly wouldn't cause a person to be drunken.
But it is just wine. That's all it is. It represents
the blood of Christ. It is a memory. It is a memorial
feast. It is in memory of Christ who
saves. He said, this do in remembrance of me. You see what I'm saying?
The bread is just bread, but it represents the body of Christ.
And the wine is just wine. It represents the blood of Christ.
The faith is in the heart. The faith of the believer in
the heart looks to Christ. It doesn't look to the bread
to do anything for him. It doesn't look to the wine to
do anything for him. It looks to Christ. But it takes this
bread and takes this wine remembering what Christ has done. You see,
the Lord's Table is not a sacrament. It has no saving power. And the
Lord's Table is not a fellowship supper to show the unity of the
church. I hear preachers and people saying,
well, we haven't observed the Lord's Table in a long time because
we're not in unity with one another. There's sin in the camp and all
this sort of thing. The Lord's Table is not a fellowship
supper for you folks to show your love for each other. The
Lord's Table shows the union of believers with Christ. The
Lord's Table is a matter between the individual believer and his
God. We don't stop baptizing people
because the church is not in union or not in fellowship or
somebody's crossways. And baptism is an ordinance.
It shows the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ and our
union with Him. And the Lord's table shows the
death of our Lord. He said, this is my body broken for you. This
is my blood shed for you. This do in remembrance of me.
Not in order to be saved, but in remembrance of me. Not in
order to redeem your soul, but because your soul is redeemed
by the broken body and shed blood of Christ. It's not a ritual. The bread and the wine are common
elements which show the flesh. The Lord was made flesh and dwelt
among us. The unleavened bread shows His
broken body. He was without sin. The wine
shows His shed blood, the purity of His blood. The unleavened
bread is broken as Christ's body was broken on the tree. The wine,
where does it come from? Well, it's squeezed from the
grape. Squeezed from the grape. and then pour it out. Our Lord's
blood was taken from him. He shed it. You say, how often
should we observe the Lord's table? There's no time given. He says, as often as you do it.
Do it in remembrance of me. And the simplicity of it. There's
no, like I said a moment ago, this is no ritual. This doesn't
have the candles and atmosphere and that sort of thing. It's
a very simple supper. It's a very simple memorial feast,
and it is a feast. It's not a funeral. Our Lord,
when He took the bread, He gave thanks. When He took the wine,
He gave thanks and gave it to His disciples. When we take this
bread, symbolic of our Lord's broken body, and this wine, symbolic
of His shed blood, we give thanks to God. Thank God He died. This
is not a funeral. This is a feast, a memorial feast. Well, who's to come to the Lord's
table? Well, let me answer that this way. Suppose I, as a pastor
and preacher of the gospel, declare to my congregation that on a
certain occasion we'll observe the Lord's table. I announce
it. This coming Sunday evening, we'll
observe the Lord's table, or Wednesday night, or whenever.
Now, my friends, our Lord instituted the ordinance Himself, so it's
mighty important. He instituted Himself. It's a
declaration of the gospel of God's mercy and grace which we
believe and preach. It's a time of worship. It's
a time of fellowship with Christ. It's a time to come together
with the Lord, rejoicing and praising Him with thanksgiving
over His sacrifice. Well, we have the bread, which
represents His broken body, and we have the wine, which represents
His shed blood. And these elements are to be
distributed to the people as our Lord gave them to His disciples.
He gave them to them. They didn't work for Him. He
gave them to them. And even so, He didn't sell it
to them. He said, take, here, this bread is my body broken
for you. He gave it to them. He gave it and they took it. Now, shall we give it to all
men indiscriminately? Shall we give it to all men and
women without any hedges or reservation? Well, Paul gives the answer in
I Corinthians 11 in two words. And those two words are examine
and discern. Who's to come to the Lord's table?
Let me show you. Now, verse 26 of I Corinthians
11, For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you
show the Lord's death till He come. You're showing what He
did for you, not what you do for Him, what He did for you.
You're showing, you do show the Lord's death. You're showing
faith in what He did for you. You can't remember what you don't
know. You can't show something that was done for you if it hadn't
been done. You are declaring before men and God and yourself
that your hope and trust and faith and confidence is in Christ,
and not just Christ the babe and Christ the healer and Christ
the preacher and Christ the miracle worker, but Christ the crucified
one. He died for me. You're saying,
My sins deserve death and He died for me. Now, notice the
next verse. Wherefore, whosoever shall eat
this bread and drink this cup of the Lord unworthily, in an
unworthy manner. What does that mean? A person
eating this bread and drinking this cup without understanding
of it, of the meaning of it, without faith in Him, without
true dedication to its meaning, shall be guilty of the body and
blood of the Lord. A man who does not know who Christ
is and what Christ did and why he did it and where he is now
and does not believe on Christ as his substitute, sin offering
and Savior, got no business eating the bread and drinking the wine.
Got no business coming to the Lord's table. But he said, let
a man what? Examine himself. I don't examine
you and you don't examine me. And the deacons and elders don't
examine, and they don't tell people who can come and who can't.
I don't know your heart. You don't know my heart. No one
knows anybody else's heart. Examine yourself. Are you a sinner? Do you know the judgment of God
against sin? Do you see the Lord's grace and
mercy in Christ? Do you believe He died for sinners?
Do you see His broken body and shed blood bearing your sins,
suffering your death? Do you discern? Now watch this.
He that eateth and drinketh unworthily eateth and drinketh damnation,
not discerning the Lord's body. What is the word discern? To
understand, to comprehend, to believe God, to believe His body,
to believe His blood. Who's to come to the Lord's table?
It's very simple. Let a man examine himself. Is
the Lord your Redeemer? Are you saved by works or by
Christ? Are you saved by the church or by Christ? Are you
saved by the law or by Christ? Well, how'd Christ save you?
He died for me. His body was broken. His blood
was shed. He died for me. He intercedes
for me. Well, come to the Lord's table. You understand. You comprehend. You discern. This is the Lord's
table. Very simple and how profound. All right, if you want this tape,
I have this message on a cassette tape and a message I'll bring
next week on the most deadliest sin of all, the most deadliest
sin of all. If you want this tape, the Lord's
Table, and this tape, this message, the deadliest sin, send $2. The
address will be given to you in just a moment. Till next week,
God bless you.