He was telling me that they were
having a good number of visitors and it's been a long time since
that church has seen that many people come to hear the gospel
and worship God. And he's encouraged and delighted
and certainly we pray for him and thank God for his ministry
there. But he made a comment, I think, that just about every preacher
who enters the ministry and begins pastoring a church probably experiences. He said, one of the things that
has surprised me there is that the people who have been there
so long do not know nearly as much as I thought they knew. They don't know nearly as much
as I thought they did. And sometimes I believe we take
for granted that our congregations know a whole lot more of the Word and of spiritual
truth than we think they do. And we go on to, as we say, other
things and neglect to rehearse over and over again the fundamentals,
the foundation. And tonight I'm going to take
this subject, the Lord's Supper, and go over some things that
need to be said. And if you will at least take
mental notes, if you don't write it down, at least take mental
notes of the things which I say. And I'm not speaking tonight
for your approval or anybody else's. I'm too old now to get
excited when somebody writes and says, I agree with what you
said. I used to get pretty excited
when somebody wrote, especially some older person, said, I agree
with what you said. But then I passed 55. It don't
matter whether they agree now or not, you know, because I've
been in it longer than some of them have been living. But I'm
going to give you some things about the Lord's table that are
scriptural, biblical, honoring to Christ, and I believe the
very foundation Luke 22, I'll read first, Luke 22. Now stay
with me carefully and listen carefully. Please, just for a
while, listen. Luke 22, 17, and he took the
cup and he gave thanks and he said, take this, take this. Now if you read these things
carefully, you see I was watching and you'll be seeing the Christ
Mass on television the next few days. And you'll see people coming
down and kneeling at what they call a sacrament. And a priest
will take the wine, he'll take the container of wine, and he'll
go through all these different things, blessed and all that. Then he'll take a wafer, not
bread, a wafer, and the people kneel. and stick out their tongues,
and He'll take that weight for a dip and lay it on their tongue.
He does not, Charlie, give them the cup. He does not give them
the bread. You see, if you'll note these
things, and I brought that in a message down in Tennessee,
and a Catholic just hit the ceiling. And I said, whether you told
him after the service, it doesn't matter to me. This is what our
Lord took the cup and gave thanks and said, you take this and you
divide it among yourselves. You see, and what folks don't
know is that this man dressed in these vestments and all, in
this Catholic church, they claim to have the authority over salvation. Salvation in the church, in the
priesthood, and they're giving it to you. Therefore, they can
keep you in bondage, in prison, and get out of you. gold and
silver and all these things. All they have to do, see, is
refuse to let you have the wafer. Refuse to let you have what they
say is actually the body and blood of Christ. And if they
don't let you have it, you're lost. If they take you out of the church,
you're lost. If they don't let you be buried
in the Catholic cemetery, you're lost. And these things, it's
a hole they have over the people. But our Lord gave it to them.
And he said, you divide it among yourselves. These little things
that people don't pay attention to, that they ought to know,
they ought to watch. That's what we have pastors for,
if they're faithful men. 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 gave
it unto them. Saying, this is my body which
is given for you. This do in remembrance of me. This do in remembrance. Now,
first of all, A, unto introduction. We have instructions from our
Lord Himself concerning this ordinance. We don't have to be
left to guesswork. We don't have to be left to tradition.
We don't have to be left to what we think we ought to do. Our
Lord specifically said, this do. This, nothing more, nothing
less. This do. This do. Take bread, bread, unleavened
bread, give thanks, break it. and eat it. This do. Is that
very difficult? It's very simple. You have instructions
from the Lord Himself. He took the wine, the fruit of
the vine, and He gave thanks, and He gave it to them and said,
divide it among yourselves and drink ye all of it. Now take
care that you do what the Master says. No more, no less. This do. This do. This very simple
service. This do. Now this ordinance was
performed at a common meal. It was when the disciples were
eating the Passover. It was a common meal. They were
eating the Passover. It was not a sacrifice. It was
not a celebration. It was not a mass. It was not
a grand function. It was not some hullabaloo. Everybody
was called together in a religious celebration. It was not on a
specific calendar. It was when the disciples met
with his, when the Lord met with his disciples and they ate the
Passover. That's when he instituted the
Lord's table. Secondly, the disciples were not kneeling before the
Lord. They were reclining about a table.
They were sitting or reclining about a table. He blessed the
bread and gave it to them. He blessed the cup and gave it
to them. And none of the disciples were appointed. Peter was not
appointed to be the server. He wasn't appointed to be the
Pope. He wasn't appointed to be the priest, but they were
all together, and they all together ate the bread and drank of the
wine. Now this do, that's what our
Lord said, nothing, you don't have a special dress, you don't
have a special celebration, you don't have a special function,
you don't have a special ritual, or nothing like that, you just
take two simple elements, bread and wine. And this bread represents
the body of our Lord, and the wine represents the blood of
our Lord. Now notice the next part of that
statement. This do, and the whole purpose of the supper is summed
up in these words. This do in remembrance of me. In remembrance of me. Now brethren,
let me point out two or three things here, and you listen to
them. And get the full meaning of it. This is not a fellowship
supper. to bring divided factions together. That's not what it's for. Somebody
said, well, the church has problems and their members in disagreement
and their folks divided. We need to have the Lord's table
and come together to bring divided factions together. It certainly
should bring divided factions together. When we gather about
the table of our Lord and remember His love for us when we're so
unlovely, we ought to be able to love others. When we come
together about the Lord's table and see his sacrifice and suffering
in our place instead, forgiving us of our sins, we ought to be
willing and ready to forgive anyone. But this is not the purpose
of it. He doesn't say this do in order
to make your church come together in unity. No, sir. He said this
do in remembrance of me. And then secondly, this is not
a sectarian ritual. in which all of us look around
to see who we can shut out and keep to come from the table.
That's not what it's for. It's not just to keep everybody
out who is not of our immediate circle. That's not what this
table's about. It's in remembrance of Christ. And then thirdly, this is not
– watch this now and be careful here. I must and you must – this
is not a ritual which provides a mystic mysterious religious
atmosphere. You mentioned something along
that line in your prayer. Deliver us from that. Deliver
us from being affected. Affected by an atmosphere. Deliver us from putting on. Oh,
God help us. God help us from changing our
expression or changing our voices or changing our personalities
for a situation. God must hate that. He must hate
that. Let's be who we are. Be what
we are. This is not a ritual to provide
a mystic, mysterious atmosphere, religious atmosphere for the
flesh to feel good, you know, and feel spiritual. Let's don't
try to create spirituality. If God brings it and gives it
by His Spirit, thank God. But God is plain and forceful,
never affective. Affectation in religion is deadly. It's dangerous. And I know it
appeals to a lot of people. I know a lot of people are fooled.
They're fooled, strangely fooled, by people who can affect things,
you know. They can make much of the flesh
with their voices and with their expressions and with their oratorical
ability and so forth. But this is not what this is
all about. And fourthly, this is not a mass.
This is not a mass to provide a perpetual repetition of His
death. He died once. This is a memorial. Now, we're not filling in the
strings, Cecil. This is not a mass to provide
a perpetual repetition of Christ's death. This is a memorial. This
is to remember His death. He died once and for all and
He redeemed us once and for all. He put away our sins once and
for all. And we remember that sacrifice.
Now this is a memorial service, a memorial supper. He said, this
do in remembrance of me. It was given to His church. It
was given to believers. You say, where do you get that?
This do in remembrance of me. You certainly can't remember
one whom you never knew. Now that ought to clear it up.
You certainly can't remember something you never knew and
never did and never experienced. You've got to have it before
you can remember it. You've got to know it before
you can remember it. You've got to experience it before
you can remember it. Turn to 1 Corinthians 11 just
a moment. That's when Paul passed this
along from his master to the church. This is what he said. of 1 Corinthians 11, 23, I have
received of the Lord that which I delivered unto you. That the
Lord Jesus, the same night in which He was betrayed, took bread. When He had given thanks, He'd
break 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 sucked, saying, This cup is the New Testament
in my blood, this do ye, as often as you drink 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 comes. To me, this one statement, somebody
says, well, who ought to take the Lord's table? Who ought not
to take it? This one statement, This do and remembrance of me
sweeps through this congregation and any congregation and sets
apart those who are invited and those who are not invited. It
hedges the table about and no more rules and regulations are
needed. This do and remembrance of me. If I know Him, I take the Lord's
name. If I love Him, trust Him, believe
Him, If he died for me, if I'm resting in his sacrifice and
suffering and his shed blood, then what's to prevent me from
coming to the table of the Lord? That's the way that Philip hedged
about the baptism. He said, that man said, what
does hinder me from being baptized? He said, if you believe on the
Lord Jesus Christ, you may. Boy, he said, I do. Then come
on. And this do in remembrance of me. All right. Let me deal
now with three things. Let me show you a scripture.
You don't need to turn to this. Let me read you a scripture over
here in the book of Exodus 12, 25. It said, And it shall come
to pass. It's talking about the Passover.
When you be come to the land which the Lord will give you
according as he hath promised, that ye shall keep this service. That ye shall keep this service.
And it shall come to pass when your children shall say to you,
What mean he by this service? What mean ye by this service,
by this ordinance? That ye shall say, it's the sacrifice
of the Lord's Passover, who passed over the houses of the children
of Israel in Egypt, when he smote the Egyptians and delivered our
houses, and the people bowed their head in worship. When the
children or when your friends say, what do you mean by this
service? Well, let me give you briefly three things. I want
you to listen to this. I believe I have something here.
Number one, what this table sets forth, what does this bread and
wine set forth? Number one, it clearly and plainly
sets forth His incarnation, our Lord's incarnation. This is real
bread here, and this is real wine. And the bread represents
a real body, His flesh. He said, this is my body broken. This is broken bread. And this
is real bread which represents real human flesh. And this is
real wine and it represents real blood. Our Lord actually became
a man. Now then, if He didn't become
a man, if He's just, if He's a spirit and not a real man,
real flesh and bones, then we couldn't remember Him with real
elements. When you have real bread, he
talks about, I'm the bread from heaven. This is my body broken,
my blood shed. When you have real elements,
bread and wine, you're talking about real flesh and real blood. Real flesh that was broken and
bruised and real blood that was shed. Oh, and secondly, it plainly
shows the ingredients and the elements show his holiness. It
is unleavened bread. That's what they had to use at
the Passover, unleavened bread. When they were sitting about
eating that Passover, when our Lord took bread, I guarantee
it was unleavened bread, because leaven is a type of evil in the
Scripture. And when the Jews ate the Passover,
they were even to take all the leaven in this right season out
of the house. They were to search the house
to see if there was any leaven. Leaven is a type of evil, and
this is unleavened bread. This is bread that has no leaven. And our Lord was without sin.
His was a perfect flesh and perfect body. And this is wine, pure
wine, pure fruit of the vine, which shows the purity of our
Lord's blood. The blood of Adam didn't flow
through His veins. Our Lord had pure blood. All
right, thirdly, it plainly shows His suffering and death. The
wine and the bread are separated. If you separate the blood and
the flesh here, I'm dead. That's all. If my blood's in
a glass here and my flesh is over here on this side, I'm dead.
It's together there in line. But he takes first the bread,
separated from the wine. He said, this is my body, the
bread, broken, and this is my blood. And so the bread is broken,
it represents his body, and the wine is poured out. which represents
his shed blood, our Lord. And the only way you can take
blood from this body is by suffering. That's right, death. So it shows
his death. All right, thirdly, it shows
substitution. He said, this is my body broken
for you, in your stead, for you, in your place, substitution.
And this is my blood shed for you. The eternal God gives this
glorious gift for you. It's for you. It's for you. And then fifthly, it shows a
living union. I take this bread and eat it. I eat it. Now turn to John 6.
Let's look at this. I actually eat the bread and
drink the blood. And that's showing my living
union with Christ. He actually comes in to dwell. That's what we're showing when
we take this bread. This is my body. It represents
His body. It's a symbol of His body. But
he said, you eat it, and this is my blood, you drink it. And
here in John chapter 6, he says here in verse 51, I am the living
bread which came down from heaven. If any man eat of this bread,
he'll live forever. And the bread that I will give
is my flesh, which I'll give for the life of this world. The
Jews therefore strove among themselves, saying, how can this man give
his flesh to eat? Jesus said unto them, Verily,
verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of
Man, and drink His blood, ye have no life in you. You see,
He is our life, spiritual life. Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh
my blood, hath life, divine life, eternal life, spiritual life,
and I'll raise him up at the last day. Now do you see those
things that, it's so clear to me, I hope it's clear to you,
is the bread and the wine. These elements actually plainly
set forth the fact that Christ became a real man on this earth.
And the type of bread it is and the type of liquid shows his
holiness, purity. He emphasizes that and insists
upon it. And the bread and the wine being
separated shows his suffering. And then he plainly says the
reason my body was broken was for you. The reason my blood
was shed was for you. The reason this all came about
is for you. It's for you. And then it plainly
shows that living union. We're not just to admire the
bread with it, eat it. We're not just to admire the
wine with, drink it. And you're not just to stand
back and admire Christ the preacher and Christ the healer and Christ
this, that and the other, but you're to embrace Him and receive
Him and feed upon Him and live upon Him and pray that He may
become your life. Here's something I think very
significant. Here's the second major thing
I want to point out. How does this bread and wine
best show his suffering and death? Now, I may offend you a little
bit here, but let's go at it. As in most things, the religious
world is all wrong in their ideas about the Lord's Supper, about
what they call communion by what they call the Lord's Table and
the sacraments and so forth, about remembering Christ, His
person and His work. They're generally all wrong.
In the first place, the Roman Church, and this is where it
came from, the Roman Church invented a day to celebrate the birth
of Jesus Christ, and they called it Christmas, Christ Mass. That's where it came from then.
The Roman Church, the Roman Catholic Church invented this C-H-R-S-T
dash M-A-S-S, Christ Mass. Christmas is Christ Mass. And they invented this to celebrate
his birth. Now listen to me. But our Lord,
neither our Lord nor any of his disciples, anywhere in the Bible,
anywhere, not one verse, comment, insinuation, or anything else,
Our Lord, neither our Lord nor any of His disciples ever gave
the church command to celebrate His birth. Not one time in this
book. Not one time. We don't even know
when it was. Here's the problem. D'Arcy and
I were driving down 29th Street and I saw a nauseating sign.
It just nauseates me to see dumb preachers put things like this
on their billboards. Happy Birthday Jesus. If that
doesn't nauseate you, you don't know Christ. Now that's a fact. Our Lord has no birthday. He
is eternal. He's the Ancient of Days. He
has neither beginning of days nor end of days. What do you
mean birthday? You've got a birthday. I was
born August the 19th, 1926. That's the first time I've ever
heard of. You can say, Happy Birthday,
Henry. Happy Birthday, Russell. Happy Birthday, Cesar. But don't
you be so asinine as to say, Happy Birthday, Jesus. That's
stupid. That's all there is to it, and
I hate to be so ornery, but that's just the way it is. Now, it's
awful, and if you can't see it, there's something wrong with
your eyes. They need to be open. Our Lord's eternal, and this
is all Catholic influence, the Christ mass celebrating Jesus'
birthday. And if you fall in with things
like that, be careful you're not damned with folks like that.
Now, the second thing, another pagan religious holiday is Easter.
Our Lord arose, that's right. Thank God He arose. Because He
arose, we'll someday rise. And each Lord's Day, each first
day of the week is a commemoration of His resurrection. And you
can't preach the gospel without preaching His resurrection. But
nowhere in the New Testament, never, never, never, never was
the early church ever instructed to keep an Easter Sunday or or
early some morning take a trip to the cemetery. They never did
it. It's not in the Bible. That's Catholic. And the very
fact that it comes at different parts of the year, I'll tell
you something. One year it'll be in March, one year it'll be
in April. I think it's even been in May, hasn't it? But we preach
the resurrection, but we go to all these extremes to do what
He didn't tell us to do. He said this too. This do in
remembrance of me. This do. As often as you do this,
you show my death till I come." You know what he said? Clear
as a bell, but we're so dumb. Now I'll tell you something else
we do. The religious world has gone to great, great trouble
to set up shrines and altars over in Jerusalem for people
to visit and get religious. They save up money and they get
with some preacher He makes a killing on it. And they go over to Jerusalem
and they visit a little place that's supposed to be where the
manger was. And none of these things are authentic. God won't
let them stand. He's not going to let us find
the ark so we can worship it. He's not going to let us find
Golgotha's hill so we'll act like a bunch of idolaters and
pagans. He's not going to let us find John the Baptist's place
where he was beheaded. God's not going to let you. And
if you have any spiritual sense, you don't want to find it. You
don't want to find it because it's idolatry, it's paganism.
That's what they did with that serpent of brass. They started
worshiping that thing. And old Hezekiah called it a
worthless piece of brass. You give a religious man any
kind of symbol or any kind of visual aids or any kind of anything
that has anything to do with his Lord's visit to this earth,
and he'll worship that thing. He'll take his affection off
Christ and put it on that thing. And I'll tell you something else
we've done. We've made the cross the symbol of religion. Where
is that anywhere in this book? You say, Paul said he preached
the cross. Paul didn't preach a tree of wood. He preached justification
by the blood of Christ. That's what he's talking about
preaching the cross. And I want to show you something. I want
you to listen. And it's so subtle. And when you do things like this,
you make folks angry. But I'm going to show you something
here. And I want you to listen to me, but don't have to turn
to it, just listen. Now, do you listen to this? Suppose you'd
never heard this song before, and suppose nobody ever told
you this was one of the greatest old hymns ever written, and suppose
somebody, nobody ever told you that this was a sacred hymn,
how would you respond to somebody who said something like this?
On a hill far away stood an old rugged cross, the emblem of suffering
and shame, and I loved that old cross. where the dearest and
best for a world of lost sinners was slain. I don't love the dearest
and the best, but I love that cross on which he was slain. That's what we're talking about.
I love the cross on which he was slain. Listen to this. That
old rugged cross so despised by the world. I didn't know the
world despised it. I saw a magician on television
and he had three of them around his neck. I see all these black
athletes wear crosses around. I didn't know they despised the
cross. They despise justification by faith. They don't despise
the cross. Every pagan religious institution
in this world has got a cross on the front of it. They don't
despise the cross. In the old rugged cross, stained
with blood so divine, a wondrous beauty I see. For there on that
old cross Jesus suffered and died to pardon and sanctify me. So I'll cherish the old rugged
cross till my trophies at last I lay down. I'll cling to the
old rugged cross. You do and you'll be lost. I
promise you. You do and you'll be lost. That's
a fact. I'll exchange it someday for
a crown. Listen to this. To the old rugged
cross I'll ever be true. It shame and reproach gladly
bear, when he'll call me some day to my home far away, where
his glory forever." If you listened to that for the first time, and
you'd never heard it before, you'd say, that fellow is worshiping
an idol. He's worshiping a cross. He'd
wear one here, and wear one around his neck, put one on his chest.
But that's what we've done. And yet, what'd the Lord say?
This do and remembers me. This is the emblem of suffering
here, not that cross. It's his bread, the bread and
the wine, which is his body and blood. Now let me show you something
now. This table, three things about it. The table of the Lord,
in its simplicity, first of all, it's universal. It's universal. It's observed everywhere. It's
not just a... Suppose you knew exactly where
Christ was crucified. God got this hill, was still
over there. And that cross was still sticking in the ground
over there. What would people do in Mexico to remember Christ? What would people do in Canada
to remember Christ? What would people do in Africa
to remember Christ? You'd have to go to that shrine.
But this table, everywhere you've got some bread and everywhere
you've got some wine, you've got a memorial of our Lord. Everywhere
that Christians can meet. It may be in the catacombs of
Rome, and I'm sure they met down in those caves, and they took
some bread, and they broke it, and laid it right here, and they
took the wine and poured it out, and they prayed and gave thanks,
and they gave it to one another and said, this is His body broken
for, this is His blood. They didn't go somewhere. See,
it's a universal memorial. It's a universal emblem. It's
a universal representation of our Lord's broken body and shed
blood of His death. This is what He has chosen. Not
a shrine, not an altar, not a cross, but this. Or secondly, watch
this. It's not only universal, but it's perpetual. Now, hills
disappear. Hills disappear. Crosses rot. Shrines decay. But everywhere
there's bread. Everywhere there's wine. It's
always new. This is new. Always new. And
you never get away from it. See, it's everywhere. And then
thirdly, watch this now, it's personal. You might have a shrine,
and I'll never go there. You may have a cross somewhere,
and I'll never see it. You may even have a table. But
unless a man personally, individually, Takes that bread, puts it in
his mouth. Takes that wine, puts it in his
mouth. That's when you remember Christ.
That's when you show my death. This do in remembrance of me.
As often as you do this, you show my death. It's heart faith
and heart union with Christ. Even you could have a ceremony,
you could have the elements, you could have the crowd, you
could have what you will. But until in just a few moments,
myself, sitting right here in my chair, I take that breath
and I say, Lord, I show to myself that Christ's body was broken
for me and His blood was shed for me. And I show to you that
my confidence and my faith and my hope is in Christ alone. My
hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and His righteousness. I dare not trust the sweetest
praying, but wholly lean on Jesus' name. And I show it to my fellow
believers. This is my hope. Not in my preaching,
or my deeds, or my works, or my decision, or my experience,
or anything else. This is my hope. Christ died for my sin,
and I show it to my children, and I show it to an unbelieving
world. Watch here! I put it in my mouth, and I eat
it. That's my hope. And I reach and
take that wine. And you can do away with all
your shrines and altars and gimmicks and emblems and symbols and all
these things. God never ordained them. God
Almighty never intended for them to be observed. This did. This did. That's right. And this right
here, baptism. That's what He said. He said
that these, and this is representing His death. And these are the
only ordinances he gave us. And I'll tell you, all these
nativity scenes, I wouldn't give you that for them. That's the
truth. Now, I'm not declaring war on
the religious world. I'm declaring war on evil, period.
Religious evil, period. And I say fanatic, radical, and
all that. But you look through the book
now, and you'll find our Lord left two ordinances to his church.
That's all. And the rest of them are man-made.
and the pagan, and this precious ordinance we're observing tonight,
this do in remembrance of me. Nothing more, nothing less. And
as often as you eat this bread, as often as you eat it, you eat
it. You show my death till I come. And another thing that this supper
shows is he's coming again, coming again. All right, Russell, you
all serve us, if you will.