I remember those who requested
prayer. I remember Professor D. Parks, Christy Sullivan's
grandbaby, Kathy Robinson, Patsy Ledford, and the family of Aniah
Sampson. Remember these folks in your prayers. Seek the Lord's
help for them. Call their name out to the Lord, and call each
other's names out to the Lord also. We'll observe the Lord's
table after this morning's service, and we'll begin our worship service
with a song. This song came into existence
because I like the tune of Jesus Calls Us Over the Tumult. It's
a nice tune. I didn't like the words in the
hymnal. We were up preaching at Jim Burge up at 13th Street,
and I told Jim, I said, because he's a really good hymn writer,
I said, do you think you could write me a hymn to the tune of
Jesus Calls Us Over the Tumult? He said, well, I'll go to my
office and think about it. Fifteen minutes later, it came out of
this. Fifteen minutes later. Boy's got poetry in his brain,
I'll tell you. That's amazing. Jesus calls us over the two months.
Yes? Booger Arch passed away too. He was a coach at Cherokee Elementary. And he was really loved by the
community. Booger Arch? Yeah. OK, his family. Yeah, he
passed away. OK, remember that family, also
the Arch family. I am vile and so unrighteous,
all depraved and full of sin. In my heart there is no goodness,
only darkness dwells within. Is there hope for such a sinner? Can there be? A remedy far from
God and so polluted must I die eternally. Lord the good news of salvation
in the gospel came to me. Jesus came by his death on Calvary. Blessed tidings of salvation
in the word of God I found. God forgives the vile and guilty
with a cheerful ♪ Cast away their sin and shame
♪ Life He gives and faith to trust Him ♪ Praise His sweet
and precious name ♪ I believe upon the Savior ♪ For His blood
has made me whole What a wonderful Redeemer He has saved my sinful
soul. Those are good words, aren't
they? I Peter chapter 4, I'm going
to read one verse of Scripture, actually one phrase of one verse
I want to take my text from this morning, the title of the message
is Scarcely Saved. I Peter chapter 4 and verse 18,
The Lord says, in the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall
the ungodly and the sinner appear? Let us pray. Our Father in heaven, we thank you for your word. We
thank you for its clarity and its beauty, its poetry. We thank you that we can always
turn to this that does not change in this world, It seems to have
gone awry. But we know that even those things
are the things that you have done and are doing for the good
of your people and for the glory of your name's sake. We bow to
your wise providence in all things, knowing full well that though
we can't understand and we can't see what's going on, we know
that the machine is controlled by you. You move and motivate
and manipulate all humanity for the elect's sake. We are astounded and so appreciative. We thank you for the shed blood
of Jesus Christ, that perfect offering and sacrifice, fully
sufficient and efficient to save the souls of your people, to
put away their sin and satisfy the law's demands. We thank you
that you have given us faith and repentance, turned our eyes
to Jesus Christ and away from ourselves, and give us mercy and grace every
day. We praise you and thank you for
who you are. Holy, separate, glorious, wondrous,
mighty, and sovereign, we bow in thanksgiving that you have
allowed us, indeed caused us, to approach to Christ and to
dwell in your house. Father, we pray for ourselves
this hour, for those who are sick, for these families has
been mentioned, lost loved ones for those who are suffering with
cancer. For brother Fred, we're thankful that he's feeling some
better. We pray that the next treatment will help him some
more. Pray for Dee Parks, for Christie's grandchild, for Patsy Ledford, for the others
who requested prayer. We ask Lord your help for them.
Now we ask, Lord, you'd be with us through this day as we preach
the gospel, as we hear the gospel, as we take the Lord's table afterwards
and then spend the time of fellowship around the food table this afternoon.
Help us to enjoy each other's presence and be thankful that
in a cold and dark world we have a place where there is light
and joy and peace in Jesus Christ. Help us now, Lord, we pray to
worship you. In Christ's name, amen. Hymn
number 40. I thought it was Great is Thy
Faithfulness. Oh, I thought that was the offertory. I'm thoroughly confused. Hymn number 39, This is My Father's
World. This is my father's world and
to my listening ears all nature sings and round me rings music
of the spheres. This is my father's world. I rest me in the thought of rocks
and trees, of skies and seas, his hand the wonders wrought. This is my father's world The
birds their carols raise The morning light and lily white
Declare their maker's praise This is my father's world He
shines in all that's fair. In rustling grass I hear him
pass. He speaks to me everywhere. This is my father's ♪ That though the wrong seems oh
so strong ♪ God is our ruler yet ♪ This is my father's world
♪ The battle is not done ♪ Jesus who died I want to ask Stan and Steve
to receive the altar this morning, please. Let us pray. Father, again, we
approach in the name of Jesus Christ, our great Savior. We
ask that you'd be pleased to cause us to worship you in this
manner. fully realizing that all we have, we have because
of your kindness and your goodness. And as we return it unto thee,
let us do so with joy in our hearts in thanksgiving, we pray
in Christ's name. Amen. I invite your attention back
to 1 Peter chapter 4, verse 18. The first phrase of
verse 18 says this, and if the righteous scarcely be saved, the righteous scarcely be saved.
There are two things I pray that God will keep in my mind until
the day that I pass from this world to the next. And the first
is this, that I am a vile sinner, born into this world without
hope and without any possibility of changing my state. I hope
I never forget that. The second thing is this, that
Christ came into this world to save sinners. And he accomplished the salvation
of the elect perfectly and completely. so that all whom he died for
are redeemed and eternally saved. That being the case, religious
men, void of understanding, have abandoned these truths and reduced
salvation to a simple plan, an easy thing, mere acceptance of
some rested scripture to their own destruction. There is no
awe of worship or reverence among religious people with regard
to salvation. They sing songs about how awesome
God is and how great God is, but it is usually a generic thing
that they talk about. They just say, Well, He is great
and He is awesome. Where was He great? Where was He greatest? Where was he at his most awesome?
Where was the highest and greatest worship service that was ever
offered to him? 2,000 years ago on Calvary Street, the Son of
God, the spotless Lamb of God, who was without sin, who knew
no sin, was made to be sin for us. And in that hour, he worshipped
God like none other have ever worshipped God. He gave his life. for His people. The carnal notion is that it
is a very easy thing to be saved, that faith in the Lord Jesus
Christ is very simple, a mere choice or decision or acceptance
of something or someone. Men even call what God calls
the unsearchable ridges of Christ, they call that the simple plan
of salvation. There is no awe or reverence
among people. Salvation to most is called a
starting place. This is the starting point in
your Christian life when you get saved. What they mean by
that is when you walk down an aisle and you make some profession
of faith, there's where you start. That isn't even your salvation.
Your salvation occurred 2,000 years ago on Calvary's tree.
The gospel reveals that fact to you. Men sing amazing grace, but is their grace amazing? They make it a common offer rather
than something that actually is effectual in the hearts and
minds of God's people. Many have walked down a church
aisle. Many have knelt at the so-called church altar and uttered
what is called today the sinner's prayer and did it through tears. Have they ever stopped for a
second to consider that experience in the light of Scripture? to
see if anything they did had a vague resemblance to what the
scripture teaches about salvation. If they were like me and ran
that sacred gauntlet between the pews many times in my religious
career, I usually just salved my conscience with that. It was
easy peasy. Salvation is not an easy thing. It is not even something you
can be a part of. It is not a simple thing for
a sinner to believe. Our Lord said in Matthew 19,
speaking of the rich young ruler, He said, Then said Jesus, Verily
I say unto you, that a rich man shall hardly enter into heaven.
And again I say unto you, it is easier for a camel to go through
the eye of the needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom
of God. And when his disciples heard this, they were exceedingly
amazed, saying, Who then can be saved? Jesus held with them. With men, with you, and with
me, it's impossible. We can't be saved. It's left
up to us. In any way, shape, or form, we
cannot be saved. But I'm thankful he said, With
God, all things are possible. Those who speak of faith as simple
and easy have never believed. Faith is a gift of God. You don't
have it. Men are not born with it. All
men have not faith. Faith is the divine operation
of God in His people. It is not something conjured
up by our imaginary free will or religious excitement. No one
has ever been saved by walking a church aisle or kneeling at
an altar or regurgitating the sinner's prayer. What sayeth the scriptures? Scripture says, if the righteous
scarcely be saved. Our Lord said of that straight
gate, strive to enter in. Agonize to enter in. For many I say unto you, many
seek to enter in. and shall not be able." Maurice Montgomery, who has gone
on to be with the Lord now, said, ìThe gate is so straight that
you canít take anything with you as you enter, and itís so
narrow that you canít pick up anything along the way.î If saving faith is no more than
saying a prayer or making a decision or making some walk from one
place to another place, or believing in the death, burial, and resurrection
of the Lord Jesus Christ as historical facts. Why did Judas perish? He believed all those things.
Why was Simon Magus, who spent time listening to the preachers
and wanted what they had, and it even says he was believed,
he was baptized. Why did he perish? Why did Demas,
who was with Paul for a long time, but forsook him, die? Why
was Diotrephes destroyed? These all were in the church. These all were so-called believers. These all sat on pews and said,
Amen. True, saving faith in the Lord
Jesus Christ is such a rare jewel that our Lord Himself says, When
the Son of Man cometh, shall he find faith in the earth? Our text says, If the righteous
scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear? The word scarcely is a very poor
translation in the English. Peter is not implying that God's
elect shall barely get into heaven or that their arrival will be
attended with fear and trembling and hesitancy. God's saints shall
be ushered into heaven in a blaze of glory, sublimely arrayed in
the righteousness of Jesus Christ, beautifully displayed on the
arm of the bridegroom. having neither spot, nor wrinkle,
nor any such thing. The word scarcely would better
be interpreted with difficulty. If the righteous be saved with
difficulty. The meaning is if the righteous
are saved with great difficulty, what shall become of the ungodly
and the believers? Great difficulty. Was it difficult for you? You
didn't have anything to do with it. What's the difficulty? And what
was salvation? God called the world into being. God spoke and it was done, but
He could not speak and make you His child. It required a new creation that
was more than speaking. It required the difficult thing. that God Almighty and the person
of His Son actually came down to this world and died in the
room instead of His people. And according to Acts 22 and
28, shed His own blood. How difficult was it to save
my soul? What did it take? First, it took
the will of God. The salvation of a sinner requires
election and predestination. It takes the work of God's sovereign,
eternal, electing love and predestination. Salvation begins with someone's
choice, but not yours. Religion says it begins and ends
with man's choice. That's a lie. It's not just another
opinion. It's a lie. The Bible declares
it begins and ends with God's choice, God's free, sovereign,
eternal choice and selection and election of His people in
Christ unto salvation. Predestination is God's wise,
gracious appointment of a purposed end and ordering all things from
eternity to bring about that which He has willed. It is according
to His will. God has blessed us with all spiritual
blessing, He says to the Ephesian believers in Christ, according
as He has chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world.
that we should behold him without blame before him in love, having
predestinated us to the adoption of children by Jesus Christ or
to himself, to the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein
he has made us accepted in the beloved. Secondly, the salvation
of a sinner required the death of a perfect sacrifice to propitiate
God or satisfy God for the sins of his elect. The soul that sinneth
in it must die. This is what you owe, God, as
you are born into this world. You owe God a death, because
you're a sinner. I owe God a death, because I'm
a sinner. That's a debt that's got to be
met. If I'm going to be found in God's favor, that debt has
to be paid. And if I end up paying it, I'm
not going to be in God's favor, I'm going to be in an eternal
damnation, in a place where the fire is not quenched, and darkness
and light at the same time, heat and fire and darkness. It required the death of Jesus
Christ, God's only begotten son, God himself, to offer unto God
a perfect sacrifice. God, as Christ is not offered
to you, he never has been offered to you or any other sinner. He
offered himself to God. It had to be a work of effectual
blood, redemption to satisfy divine inflexible justice accompanied
by the infinitely meritorious substitute accomplished by him.
Lord Jesus Christ did that in Isaiah chapter 40. Verse 3 through 5 it says this,
The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, prepare the
way of the Lord, make straight the desert highway of our God.
Every valley shall be exalted, every mountain
and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight,
and the rough places plain, and the glory of the Lord shall be
revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth
of the Lord hath spoken." That's metaphorical language we know.
We know that is. Descriptive language. These are
obstacles, valleys and mountains, crooked places, hard places. These are obstacles, seemingly
insurmountable difficulties, which lie in the way of God's
saving sinners. God would not show mercy at the
expense of justice. These great difficulties had
to be dealt with. Something has to be done about those mountains
and those valleys and those crooked places. Something has to be done
about that. Verse 5 tells us that the glory
of the Lord is revealed in Christ's skillful obliteration of these. Thanks be unto God, our hero,
our captain, our champion, by his obedience and death as our
substitute, satisfied the righteousness and justice of God for his elect.
He brought the mountain of sin low. The blessed Savior cast
them into the depths of the sea. He straightened out the crooked
places. That's speaking of our iniquity.
Iniquity means inequity or crookedness. When Christ comes in saving grace
by the power of his spirit and reveals the gospel to our hearts,
we seem to see things that we could not see before. He makes
the way plain and crooked way straight. This is a wondrous
thing. We can't do that. Far too difficult
for us. God Almighty could not and would
not save anyone without effectual blood propitiation. He must be
satisfied. His law and His justice cannot
go unsatisfied. The Son of God came into this
world as our substitute. What does that mean? That means
He stood in our place and gave God the death that we
owed. Our substitute. being justified freely scripture
says by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ
Jesus whom God set forth to be a propitiation that word is used
four times in the New Testament and the Old Testament it means the mercy seat is where
the shed blood was put on the mercy seat and the holy of holies
on the day of atonement and that's the Lord said the only place
I'm going to commune with anybody Deuteronomy 25 is over the mercy
seat. Now that mercy seat is God's
propitiation and that propitiation is a person. It says Christ the propitiation
here in his love not that we love God but he loved us and
sent his son. Now the English translators put
the words to be in there But that can talk about intent. That's
not what that's talking about. He sent his son, the propitiation. His son, the propitiation, to
declare at this time his righteousness and that it might be just and
justify them that believe on Jesus Christ. Thirdly, it takes
divine providence to save a sinner. It takes the divine art of ordering
all things in meticulous detail to bring time, tide, and circumstance
to serve the sovereign as they work together to bring an elect
sinner to the feet of the Lord Jesus Christ. Providence. What we can't see, we feel it.
It affects us. Sometimes it knocks us down,
sometimes it lifts us up, but we always are subject to it. But God's providence brings His
people to Himself. How does He do it? Really well,
because they all come. They all come. We know all things
work together for good to them that love God, to them that are
called according to His purpose. For whom He did foreknow, He
also did predestinate, that if He conformed to the image of
His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren.
Moreover, whom He predestinated, Him He also called. whom he called
them he also justified, whom he justified them he also glorified."
God did all that? What should we say to these things?
If God be for us, who can be against us? Who can be against
us? Secondly, the salvation of a
sinner required the death of a perfect sacrifice of the Lord
Jesus Christ. Thirdly, divine providence is
involved. It takes divine ordering of things.
Providence is the staging. I use that word because I believe
that's what it is. It's the staging of predestination. It's the staging of it. God predestinated
in His purpose that these things would take down and then He stages
it on this thing, this globe that He calls Earth. The accomplishment in time of
that which God has purposed in eternity. We know that all things
are unto Him. by Him, and through Him, and
to Him are ALL THINGS, to whom be glory for ever." What does
it take to save a sinner? Everything. It takes ALL THINGS to save a
sinner. Everything that IS, everything
that HAS BEEN or EVER SHALL BE, nothing in God's universe is
EXCESSIVE, nothing in God's universe is UNNEEDED, nothing in God's
universe is REDUNDANT or SUPERFLUOUS or WASTED. ALL THINGS WORK TOGETHER
FOR GOOD TO THEM THAT LOVE EVERYTHING. In 1 Corinthians or 2 Corinthians
5 it says, ALL THINGS ARE OF GOD. 4 It takes unstoppable,
irresistible, sovereign grace to save a sinner. It takes the
irresistible grace and the power of God, the Holy Spirit and sovereign
regeneration and effectual calling to raise a dead sinner from the
grave and give him faith. David said, Blessed to be envied. Blessed is the man whom thou
choosest and causest to approach unto thee. He'll dwell in your
house forever. The work of God, the Holy Spirit,
is as necessary to the salvation of God's chosen as election,
redemption, and providence. By election and predestination,
God's people were marked. They were separated. They were
severed for grace. and the way that God's saving
grace would come into their hearts was fixed and sure. In redemption,
our magnificent substitute met every demand of God's law and
justice, put away our sins, leveled the mountains, and straightened
the path for the entrance of grace and providence. God, our
Savior, precisely manipulated all affairs and events of the
universe to bring His elect to that blessed appointed time and
place where He will meet the chosen sinner in grace and mercy. In regeneration and effectual
calling and conversion, God the Holy Spirit performs the work
and operation of grace in our hearts, making chosen redeemed
sinners willing in the day of his irresistible power. Blessed
is the man whom thou choosest and causest to approach unto
thee. God's grace is irresistible. Why? Because the Holy Spirit
is greater than you are. He's God, after all, God the
Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. How does God cause
His chosen to flee to Christ? How does the Lord of glory make
His chosen redeemed, willing in the day of His power? By Holy
Spirit conviction. The Holy Spirit takes the things
of Christ and reveals it unto them. And they are enamored with
Christ. They fall in love with Jesus
Christ. They won't be near Christ. They won't be near Christ's people.
and they don't even know why that is, they just know that
that's what they want because the Holy Spirit has worked on
their heart. Our Lord said, My sheep hear My voice, and they
follow Me, and they will not follow another. And I give unto
them eternal life. There is no salvation apart from
faith in Christ, not a free will, work of man, but a mighty operation
of grace, and that grace comes to you bringing faith. You must
believe on Christ if you would be saved, but you cannot believe
unless you've been redeemed. He that believeth on the Son,
Scripture says, past tense, already possessive, hath eternal life. Faith is not the
cause of the new birth, it's the result of it. How does that
work? Somehow, through the Word, by
the Spirit? I don't know. I can't see it. It's a spiritual
thing. works inside a person in his
heart. I can't tell whether God's dealing with a person or not.
All I can do is tell them what God says and leave it to God
to do the business. Fifthly, it takes the preaching
of the gospel to save a sinner. Preaching of the gospel to save
a sinner. That does not honor or exalt
the man who stands in the pulpit and preaches. He is nothing.
He will soon pass off the scene and someone else will stand in
his place saying the same things he said. But Scripture claims
in no uncertain terms that the instrumentality of gospel preaching
is absolutely necessary in the salvation of God's elect because
Scripture says it pleased God through the foolishness of preaching.
That's not foolish preaching. That's the fact that a man can
stand up and tell you about God seems utterly foolish. Through
the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe the
Word of God is powerful. It's like a two-edged sword.
That's how it's described. It quickens men, makes them alive,
makes them alive. It discerns the thoughts and
intents of the heart. It divides things like joints
and marrows. It touches your heart. It reads
your mail. It gets in your business. And you better hope God does
get in your business because if He don't get in your business,
you're in trouble. You're in trouble. The Lord said the preaching of
the gospel is absolutely necessary. Why? Because it gives new birth
by life. It gives a new birth by the word. That's what he says
in James 1.18. He says, You have been begotten
by the word of truth. By the word of truth. You are
born, not of corruptible seed, but incorruptible seed, even
the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever. And this
is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you. Because
what are you? Oh, you're grass. All flesh is
grass. This warm spell that just came.
We were driving down the road to see those red buds on those
maple trees. We think, oh, spring ain't far
away. Yellow bells are popping out
on my forsythia bushes. Then we read yesterday, going
to have four weeks of really cold weather. We like those flowers. Oh, what they're looking, they're
pretty. When the blast of the wind, the
cold wind goes on them, they'll wither away and be nothing. God
says all flesh is as grass as the flower of the field. The
wind bloweth and it withereth away. That's what we are. But here's the thing. The Word
of God abides forever. it was here before we got here,
it'll be here after we're gone. The word of God is. Romans chapter 10 makes it clear.
Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
How then shall they call on Him in whom they've not believed?
So in order to call on Him, you've got to believe in Him. But then
it goes on to say, How shall they believe in Him in whom they've
not heard? So you got to hear about Him
and hear from Him in order to believe on Him, in order to call
on Him in order to be saved. How shall they believe except
they hear? And how shall they hear without
a preacher? God ain't going to write it on the sky. He ain't
going to get it in a comic book. You're going to hear it from
one whom God has sent, for it says, how shall they preach?
except they be sent. So God's got to send you a preacher
to tell you the truth so you can hear the Word of God because
faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word so you can believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ and so you can call on Him. That's
how that works. It's an act of God. Gospel preaching
is not optional. It is essential an essential
element in God's method of grace. Now it's fixed so no man can
take account that he had something to do with it. I preach the gospel
to you, but I won't give an invitation at the end of this message. And
I won't try to give a sad story to make you cry, make you feel
like you ought to do something about your life. I'll tell you
the truth and leave. It's between you and God. And
if God does something for you, you know what? the old yellow
dog on the back porch will find out about it. Everybody will
know. God does something for you. Everybody
will know. At the appointed time of love,
when the time comes for a chosen redeemed sinner to be saved,
God will send a gospel preacher to him and send him a gospel
preacher. If he has to turn the world upside
down to do it, he'll do it. Secondly, it takes divine Or
sixthly, rather, it takes divine preservation to save a sinner.
It takes a work of immutable, unqualified grace, preserving
the people of God throughout life and eternity, causing them
to persevere in faith, keeping them in the will of God. Paul
said to the Philippians, I'm confident of this very thing,
that God, who began a good work in you, will accomplish it for
the day of Jesus Christ. If God started it, He'll finish
it. It takes the same grace to keep us saved that it does to
save us to begin with. We are kept by the power of God.
We don't keep ourselves. God has promised that He shall
keep us forever by the power of His grace. Our Savior says,
I give unto them eternal life. They shall never perish. Malachi
3, 6 and Psalm 89 both talk about the unchangeableness of God. He said, if my children transgress,
I will visit their transgression with stripes, but nevertheless,
I will not let them go. I will not cause my faithfulness
to fail. You see, our salvation is His
faithfulness, not ours. Not ours. We are weak. Christ
is strong. We are unstable as water. God
is faithful. We are tempted. God has made
a way for us to escape so that we may be able to bear the temptation. We sin. His blood cleanses us
from all sin. He will forgive us. We fall and
we fail daily. He will raise us up. He promises,
I will not depart from them. We change. He never changes.
I am the Lord. I change not. Therefore you sons
of Jacob are not consumed. Our love varies with circumstance.
His love never does. It never varies. If He loves
you, He'll always love you and He will always love you. And
that love is unconditional. But what if I sin? It ain't got
anything to do with it. What if? First of all, you don't
understand yourself because there ain't no what if about your sinning.
You're going to sin. You're going to sin with every
breath you take. Sin is in us. A principle. God says, I will not depart from
them, no matter the circumstance, the trial, the sorrow, the sin.
Our God and Savior promises, lo, I am with you always, even
to the end of the earth. Always. And I know when we think
about our lives, sometimes we think, He can't be with me. Why
would He want to be around this? But He said, I'll never leave
you nor forsake you. Finally, it takes the risen Savior to
save a sinner. takes the work of resurrection glory, by which
these bodies, sown in corruption, shall put on incorruption. Mortality
shall put on immortality, and God's elect shall enter into
the eternal state of bliss called the glorious liberty of the sons
of God. Salvation is of the Lord. Salvation
in its entirety is found in the Lord Jesus Christ. How difficult
was it to save a sinner? It was so difficult that it could
not be done. unless god almighty did it from start to finish All sinners who are saved by
grace are welcome to this table. This table is a commemoration.
Sins were remitted on the cross 2,000 years ago. They were remission
and put away. Done with. And our Lord said
that where remission of these is, there is no more offering
for sin. There is no more sacrifice. So
what we're doing here is not a sacrifice. This is not some
spiritual elements. These are natural elements that
teach a spiritual truth. They're not going to make a difference
in your life, except put a little bit of stuff in your stomach,
which will be processed and will go into every one of your cells
in your body. But it's not going to make anything happen, because
if you're not a believer, if you're not trusted by Lord Jesus
Christ alone as your Savior and Helper, don't take this thing.
I want you to don't take this thing. Now, if you're here today,
and you're a believer, and we don't have enough cups for you,
and it says terrible on the other, I will make sure you have enough. Because I only put 26 in there,
and they had more people in that thing than in New York State.
So I'm not going to take a shot, but I'm going to thank you. Shame on me. So the night I rode
over to Detroit, we went to the Court of Men's Justice. He was
found guilty in that court. He wasn't guilty of anything.
But on the night he betrayed, he took the elements of the Passover
feast, which was unleavened bread and wine. And he took that bread,
and unleavened bread, and he'd break it, and he gave it to his
disciples. He said, take and eat. This is my body. It wasn't
his body. His body was canned energy. It was symbolic. It meant
something. And what he was saying is, take
this bread and eat it, because I'm going to the cross, and you're
going to survive me and sustain off of me for the rest of your
existence. Take this bread. He broke it and gave it to himself.
He says, take this bread and eat it. Do it in remembrance
of me. On the same night, he took the cup, which was the new
wine of the Passover. And he took the cup, and he blessed
it. He said, this cup is the new
covenant in my blood. The new covenant, the covenant
of God's grace. for in all the children of God
are saved by the grace. An unconditional covenant, conditioned
only on the fact that Jesus Christ died in the womb instead of his
mother. This is the new covenant in my life. As often as you eat
this bread and drink this cup, you will not show forth my death
until I come again. Christianity is about death. If you want to take the thing,
you're a believer, and I don't have enough wine for you, I'll
pour you a couple. Okay? That's it. Now, Father,
bless you and thank you to Jesus Christ for your mercy and grace.
Thank you for the great salvation that you've brought. We thank
you, Father, that we can come into your presence because of
the blood of Jesus Christ. We thank you that you've given
this separate ceremony for us to remember. what you did for
us, to commemorate the great act that you accomplished 2,000
years ago in Calvary School. For you gave your body and your
blood for your people, and redeemed them, and for appreciating God
for their sins. Help us, Lord, to be thankful
for your kindness. Amen. And the night I was betrayed,
he took the bread and break it and said, take it, this is my
body, go cook for you. So I went as you do it, brother,
and he made me take it. On the same night, he took
the cup. He said, this cup is the new testament, new covenant
in my blood, because I went as you eat this bread and drink
this cup, and you show forth my death until I come again. Do this in the name of Jesus. That night they stood, sang a
hymn, and the Lord went out to be betrayed by Jesus. Let's stand
together. My hope is built on nothing less
than Jesus' blood and righteousness. How can I trust the sweetest
rain? All right. Our visitors, glad to have you
with us today. I hope you'll stay and eat. We have a lot of food. Thank
you. When we're in the Lord's table,
generally speaking, we like to hug each other and tell each
other we love each other. Now, if you don't want to be a part of
that, then I wish God would piss off whatever you want to do with
that. But that's all we do after we've been brothers and sisters,
so God bless you for listening.