Gooding, David: The Importance and Wisdom of the Lord’s Supper

It is a great pleasure for me to be here with you in Westbrook, and I thank you sincerely for your invitation and for the warm welcome you give me now I have arrived. I thought, since this was in fact my first time here with you in Westbrook, I would choose to speak on something that is central to our Christian faith and fundamental thereto. Something that stands very near to the affections which every Christian bears towards our Lord Jesus Christ. I have chosen, therefore, to think with you about the institution of our Lord's Supper. And I propose to read four passages relevant to this topic, two from the Gospels and two from the Epistles. Our first reading is found in Matthew's Gospel, chapter twenty six, Matthew's Gospel, chapter twenty six, verse one. I happen to be reading from the Revised Version. And it came to pass, when Jesus had finished all these words, he said unto his disciples, Ye know that after two days the Passover cometh, and the Son of Man is delivered up to be crucified. Then were gathered together the chief priests and the elders of the people unto the court of the high priest, who was called Caiaphas. They took counsel together that they might take Jesus by subtlety and kill him. But they said, not during the feast, lest a tumult arise among the people. Now, when Jesus was in Bethany, in the house of Simon the leper, there came unto him a woman having an alabaster cruse of exceeding precious ointment, and poured it upon his head as he sat at meat. When the disciples saw it, they had indignation, saying, to what purpose is this waste? This ointment might have been sold for much and given to the poor. But Jesus, perceiving it, said unto them, why trouble ye the woman? For she hath wrought a good work upon me. For ye have the poor always with you, but me ye have not always. For in that she poured this ointment upon my body, she did it to prepare me for burial. Verily I say unto you, wheresoever this gospel shall be preached in the whole world, that also which this woman hath done shall be spoken of for a memorial of her. Then one of the twelve, who was called Judas, went unto the chief priests and said, What are you willing to give me, and I will deliver him unto you? And he weighed unto him thirty pieces of silver. From that time he sought opportunity to deliver him unto them. Now on the first day of unleavened bread, the disciples came to Jesus saying, Where wilt thou that we make ready for thee to eat the Passover? And he said, Go into the city to such a man and say unto him, The master saith, My time is at hand, I keep the Passover at thy house with my disciples. And the disciples did as Jesus appointed them, and they made ready the Passover. Now when even was come, he was sitting at meat with the twelve disciples, and as they were eating, he said, Verily I say unto you that one of you shall betray me. They were exceeding sorrowful and began to say unto him every one, Is it I, Lord? And he answered and said, He that dipped his hand with me in the dish, the same shall betray me. The son of man goeth even as it is written of him, but whereunto that man through whom the Son of Man is betrayed? Good were it for that man if he had not been born. Judas, which betrayed him, answered and said, Is it I, Rabbi? He saith unto him, Thou hast said. And as they were eating, Jesus took bread and blessed and brake it, and he gave it to the disciples and said, Take eat, this is my body. And he took a cup and gave thanks, and gave to them, saying, Drink ye all of it. This is my blood of the covenant which is shed for many unto remission of sins. But I say unto you, I will not drink his- henceforth of this fruit of the vine until the day when I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom. So stands Matthew's account of the institution of the Lord's Supper, and the three other, two other accounts in the Gospels naturally follow Matthew very closely. In turning now to Luke's account, I merely wish to pick out certain salient points that Luke has, which Matthew has not. The account, of course, is found in chapter twenty two. Twenty two. Verse 24 of Matthew twenty two. There arose also a contention among them, which of them is accounted to be greatest? And he said unto them, The kings of the Gentiles have lordship over them, and they that have authority over them are called benefactors. But ye shall not be so. But he that is the greater among you, let him become as the younger, and he that is chief as he that doth serve. For whether is greater, he that sitteth at meat, or he that serveth? Is not he that sitteth at meat? But I am in the midst of you as he that serveth. Ye are they which have continued with me in my temptations, and I appoint unto you a kingdom, even as my Father appointed unto me, that ye may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom. And ye shall sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel. Simon, Simon, behold, Satan asked to have you that he might sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not. Do thou, when once thou hast turned again, establish thy brethren. And he said unto him, Lord, with thee I am ready to go both to prison and to death. And he said, I tell thee, Peter, the cock shall not crow this day until thou shalt deny thrice that thou knowest me. And he said unto them, when I sent you forth without purse and wallet and shoes, lacked ye anything? And they said, nothing. And he said unto them, but now he that hath a purse, let him take it, and likewise a wallet. And he that hath none, let him sell his cloak and buy a sword. For I say unto you that this which is written must be fulfilled in me, and he was reckoned with the transgressors. For that which concerneth me hath fulfillment. And they said, Lord, behold, here are two swords. And he said unto them, it is enough. Now let us leave the Gospels for a moment and turn to the first epistle to the Corinthians. First of all, in chapter ten. First Epistle to the Corinthians in chapter ten, verse sixteen. The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not a communion of the body of Christ? Seeing that we who are many are one bread, one body, for we all partake of the one bread. Behold Israel after the flesh. Have not they which eat the sacrifices communion with the altar? What say I then? That a thing sacrificed to idols is anything, or that an idol is anything? But I say that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils and not to God. I would not that ye should have communion with devils. Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of devils. Ye cannot partake of the table of the Lord and of the table of devils. Or do we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Or are we stronger than he? Finally, from chapter eleven of this same epistle, verse twenty three: For I received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, how that the Lord Jesus, in the night in which he was betrayed, took bread. When he had given thanks, he brake it and said, this is my body, which is for you. This do in remembrance of me. In like manner also the cup after supper, saying, this cup is the new covenant in my blood. This do as oft as ye drink it in remembrance of me. For as often as ye eat this bread and drink the cup, ye proclaim the Lord's death till he come. Wherefore, whose whoever shall eat the bread or drink the cup of the Lord unworthily shall be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord. But let a man prove himself, and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For he that eateth and drinketh, eateth and drinketh judgment unto himself if he deserve not the body. For this cause, many among you are weak and sickly, and not a few sleep. But if we discerned ourselves, we should not be judged. But when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we may not be condemned with the world. Wherefore, my brethren, when ye come together to eat, wait one for another. If any man is hungry, let him eat at home, that your coming together be not unto judgment. The Lord himself draw near and expound to us his holy word. Our Lord left us only two ordinances, which therefore become remarkable by their very fewness of number, and concentrate our attention on their singular importance. He left us the ordinance of baptism, the ordinance of the Lord's Supper. And so tonight, as we survey together the familiar theme of the Lord's Supper, inevitably we shall constantly think of its importance. This is a something that our Lord asked us to do, a something very rare that our Lord asked us to do, rare in the sense that it is one of only two ordinances. But in addition to perceiving its importance, we shall, I trust, be helped of God to see the wisdom which lies behind our Lord's injunction. It is a lovely thing for every believer when he is given to see the wisdom of God behind God's gracious commands. It goes without saying, of course, that we owe to our Lord unquestioning obedience to every one of his commands, even if we cannot perceive the wisdom behind them. Suppose we cannot see the reason why. Ours is not to question, ours to do, trusting the heart of him who loves us, trusting the mind of an all-wise Savior and God. But how lovely when God, uh, treats us not as infants merely to be commanded without understanding why, but rather as grown up sons to whom he may entrust his secrets and explain his ways, that we might perceive their wisdom and with all the more wholeheartedness cooperate with him in the carrying out of his instructions. Let us then, by God's grace, see tonight the importance of this ordinance, and also its exceeding wisdom. I want then first to say a few words on our Lord's Supper from the historical viewpoint, to see what we may learn from its very institution. For I some submit to you that it shows us what is and whatever must be the prime and central Christian emphasis. For let us reflect a moment that, um, when our Lord instituted this thing, he was instituting a something by which we should remember him. How many things there were about him that we love, and which he might have chosen by which we should remember him. There are all those wonderful miracles that he did, full of grace and kindness, every one of them. But we do notice that it is not his miracles that here he bids us recall by this constantly repeated rite. And again, we think how lovely were his teachings. How glorious those parables he taught. How striking and how, um, gripping his moral teaching. And yet we cannot fail to notice that when he wanted something to be done to recall him, he didn't order us to stand publicly and recite his parables that we might remember what he said in those parables, or to recite publicly the Sermon on the Mount that he might, we might remember his ethical teaching. He chose to select this from all his life and ministry. He chose to select something that should recall the offering of himself as a sacrifice for our sins. Bread and wine. His body given and his wine, his blood given for us. Expressly said, given for us for the forgiveness of sins. We cannot, of course, think that this is some casual thing that our Lord did, uh, without forethought or deliberate intention. It must be that in asking us to do this which recalls his sacrifice and death, that our Lord wished to imprint it as the central thing in the whole of Christianity. This is it. This the thing that lies nearest the Lord's heart. This the most important thing that we are to gather about all that he said and ever did, this. We should remember that he gave his body a sacrifice and shed his blood for the forgiveness of human sin. I want to submit to you that herein we may perceive our Lord's wisdom in this provision for his church. A glance back at the history of the Christian church will show us that there have been days when the church felt that its main task was a program of social reform. That its message to the world was a message for the improvement socially of the masses. Or for the political setting up and putting down of kings. Days there have been many. When the church has spoken, uh, to the world as though the main thing in Christianity were its rules and regulations. Were its, uh, Christian ethics. And the church has bid the world to try and keep the golden rule. Now that we are exhorted to do good works unto all men and should have a care for our neighbor, this is transparently clear in the New Testament. That there are ordina- or there are injunctions, there are commandments to be kept, binding upon Christians. This likewise is clear. But these, I venture to say, are not the central thing in Christianity. The central thing about Christianity is the thing which is unique among all religions of earth. That our Lord was a savior, come to die for human sin, that sin might be forgiven, man might be put right with God. Happy the church, who has allowed the constant celebration of this central thing of Christianity to imprint upon its mind that this is the fundamental thing. Should we forget all else, then we must remember this, preach it with all our powers. Our Lord came as a sacrifice for sin. Will you allow me a little bit of a sermon on the side? My brother, if you have a heart for the souls of men, yield not to this world's incessant clamor, for this world is cheap with its advice to the church and what the church should preach and do. Suggesting that you would make a bigger impact on the world if you dropped these mysterious things and got on with social reform. But my brother, listen rather to the Lord's will. Let him by this institution imprint upon our minds that this is the message of Christianity. This is the thing by which we remember Christ. This preeminently what he came to do. Not to relieve men's poverty necessarily, but to die for their sins. Bring man and put him right with God. And we who have lived to this advanced age, and particularly now those of us who are younger here, shall doubtless see our Lord's wisdom in the institution of this supper from another and, uh, theological viewpoint. Any of you older folk who are not troubled with modern theology and do not have to meet its attacks in your daily life, you may perhaps, um, have a little snooze for the next ten minutes. I want to talk to my younger brethren and sisters, just, uh, by your permission, for a few moments. We have lived to see a day when, in the name of Christ and Christian theology, there are many who would preach to us that our Lord's, uh, divinity, his atoning death, his bodily resurrection, that these are ideas that exist, uh, that originated with the church and were not taught by our Lord himself. Liberal scholars will call our attention to the fact that the records that we have in the Gospels of what our Lord said and did are records compiled years after our Lord went back to heaven, compiled by the church. They will argue to us and say, but look, Jesus himself never claimed divinity. It was the church who claimed divinity for him. As looking back over the years and remembering him, his wisdom and his teaching, affectionately they put a halo of divinity round his head, and thinking to honor him, gave him the status of Godhead. But that was the church, they will tell you, who wrote the gospels, not our Lord, who wrote nothing. His atoning death, say they again, this is not what our Lord intended by his death at all. His death was to show us how we ought to deny self and say to God, not my will, but thine be done. But if you please, they will tell us there came later apostles, and notably Saul of Tarsus, with a mind soaked in Judaism and its Old Testament sacrifices. And alas, the liberals will tell us, men like Paul went and spoiled the whole thing by interpreting the death of Christ in the light of Old Testament sacrifices, suggesting to us that God needed blood and fire before he could forgive his erring children. And say our liberal theologians, you see, that's not what Christ taught, that's what the apostles taught, that's what the church taught. We come to the glorious fact of the resurrection. How could they say it's not a fact at all, not really. It's only a belief. Say there, you mustn't believe that the bones literally came out of the grave. That's not what our Lord meant at all. He meant that if you were willing to say no to flesh, to crucify self, you would find new life in your experience of God, and that's all he meant. But those later Christians made a fable out of it, made a myth out of it. Whereas our Lord only meant, uh, that we should find, by being willing to crucify self, we should find greater life and experience of God. They misunderstood it and thought he meant that he was going to literally, physically rise again from the dead. And if you haven't, uh, come across those kind of theories, then don't. And you needn't bother. And some of us younger folk perforce must. Well, kiddies may na- in fact be taught it in their day schools, if perchance their religious instructor is of a liberal persuasion. How wise of God, who foresees the end from the beginning, that our Lord himself, before he died upon the cross, years before the first gospel was written or the first epistle penned, our Lord himself should have instituted a ceremony that gives the lie to all these liberal fancies. For we shall observe that whereas Matthew and Luke, uh, are written sometimes a- sometime after our Lord's ascension to heaven, recording for us the details of the institution of the supper, the supper itself was instituted by Christ before he died, and was celebrated from the very word go in the Christian church. It stands as the earliest record we have of what our Lord claimed and what our Lord, uh, taught about himself and his work. On Pentecost Day onward, if not before. As little groups of Christian men and women gathered together, there they enacted a record that the Lord himself told them to enact. And you will observe that that record contains what is vital to true Christianity. Our Lord's atoning death, my body given, my blood poured, specifically said for the remission of sin. Specifically described as the blood of the New Covenant, and long before there was an ever a book called the New Testament, Christians met to celebrate the New Testament. For the New Testament is not this book, you'll know. The New Testament is the testament, the covenant that Christ performed and secured for us when he died, whereof the symbol is the bread and the wine of which we partake at the Lord's Supper. This is the blood of the New Testament. But see again, not only did he claim before he died that he was going to die for human sin, but implied in that claim is inevitably the claim to divinity, to deity. What ordinary human could claim to come and die as a sacrifice for the sins of the world? What sane man would ever breathe any such notion? Moses, in his highest flights of oratory, never dreamed of, uh, making any such claim. And Isaiah in his own ministry, for himself never once expressed any such notion. There is only one who, being sane and commanding men's respect, ever claimed he had come to die for the sins of the whole world. For the very claim implies he was more than man, yea, God incarnate. For only God incarnate could offer a satisfactory sacrifice for sin. Do we not perceive that that very claim that he was about to die for human sin involves the claim that he rose again? For he ever and anon said it thus, that he would be delivered, crucified, and the third day rise again. Indeed, if he be not risen, as a later apostle said, we are still in our sins. He is not God's son, and of all men we are the most miserable. I would like now to point out how Matthew, in his record of the supper, goes out of his way to demonstrate to us that the idea of the atoning death of Christ, enshrined here in the La- the Lord's Supper, is not an idea that originated with the church, not even an idea that originated with the apostles, but an idea that originated with Christ. See how Matthew does it. Passover was coming, the Passover on which Christ should die. And our Lord said that the Pharisees would want to take him, but that he himself had determined to die on the Passover, only a few hours distant now in time. And he came with his followers to a certain house of Simon, and there they made him an ordinary supper, during the course of which a woman anointed his head and feet with ointment. It gave rise to severe criticism. Said the disciples one and all, what a waste of money. All that money, three hundred pence and more, perhaps, four hundred and fifty pounds in our values. All that money pulled out and lost just on one occasion. Our Lord defended the woman and said something remarkable. Said he, she has wrought a good work. The poor you have always, me you have not always. In that she has done this, she has anointed me for my burial. I suggest to you it descended upon them like a thunderclap. Burial. Burial. But he's going to die that quick, that he can regard this as the anointment of his dead body. Yes. The evidence, as I read it, suggests that those po- apostles, for all that Christ had said, were not really expecting him to die. For had they been expecting him to die, had they had the slightest notion that this was the last occasion ever on which they might have the opportunity to express their gratitude to him. They would have given him not four hundred and fifty pounds, they would have given him anything, wouldn't they? Or do you, sir, think that those apostles were meaner than you are? But come now. You wouldn't think of, um, spending four hundred and fifty pounds every month, perhaps, on your wife, a new dress, a mink overcoat. You would say, yeah, hmm, well, yes, I do love a good woman, but, um, you know, four hundred and fifty pounds e- e- every month, I mean, isn't that a bit stiff? Wherefore this waste? The money might have been, yes, given to the poor or something, eh? Or, or, well, no, not that, put into your car maybe or something, but four hundred and fifty pounds on my wife every month. Ah, yes. But suppose one dark day the doctor said to you that your wife has only two months to live. It would, uh, do her good, maybe. At any rate, it can do her no harm. If you gave her a cruise in the Mediterranean. Sir, if it were your last chance to show your love, would you grudge the four hundred and fifty if you had it? It being the last, and you knowing it the last opportunity? Would you write off Peter and John and James as so impossibly mean. They would have grudged our Lord that token, that tribute, if they had realized that almost tomorrow he would be dead. No, they thought they had him always. No, says Christ, the poor you have always, but you see, gentlemen, you've forgotten, haven't you? That you're not having me always. They weren't even expecting him to die. So soon. How did you say they found out? Our Lord told them. And when they found out, of course, they said, ah yes, now we see. Um, ah yes, of course, that's what the Old Testament said. Yes. And uh, he's going to die for sin. Now we shall help him to get arrested. We shall do everything in our power. So? And they fell in with the scheme, and they said, this will be a good thing. We hadn't thought of that before. Now, if only we could get our Lord crucified by the Jews, we could, uh, we could tell the people he had fulfilled Isaiah's prophecy. Hi, this is a scheme, this. And this will prove to them that he's Messiah. So, Peter? So, John? I fancy not. They went out into the night, slept while our Lord prayed, and presently there came the squad to arrest him. Manfully Peter drew his sword, surprised that the Lord did nothing. And then, to his utter dismay, was told Peter, put up your sword into its place. What was this? Bold men prepared to give their last drop of blood to save him from dying. Knowing the disappointment of a zeal that would have given everything, only now to be repulsed, and said, no, I don't want it, uh, Peter. I don't want it. You're not going to stand there and let, let them take you, are they? says Peter. Don't you know what they're going to do to you if they get their hands on you? You're not going to stand there just like that and let them take you. But said our Lord, but then you see, Peter, that I could, if I wanted, call for twelve legions of angels, each with a sword, you know. Then how should the scripture be fulfilled? What scripture? Why, that thus it must be, that I must be taken and die. Oh, said Peter, oh, said John, oh, said James, and oh, said they all. Oh, well, if that's your idea, that isn't ours. Goodbye. Then all his disciples forsook him and And fled. fled. For a Messiah that willingly, uh, gave himself up to his enemies to die, that wasn't in all their theological vocabulary. It is sheer nonsense to say the idea originated with the church. Let's finally look at the very chiefest of the apostles, Peter himself. For when the others ran, he came back and entered the judgment hall where our Lord was on trial before the religious authorities. He went to see the end. What would this Jesus of Nazareth do now? Here was a situation, if ever you saw one. Now, if he had resisted the squad of soldiers and done a miracle and called angels to deliver him, then there was some sense in claiming to be the Son of God. But for a man who lamely gave himself up like that and let himself be overpowered and taken into the judgment hall, well, now he better be careful. They're bent on getting evidence to crucify him. And if he dare squeak now about being God's son and Messiah, they'll have his head. Peter listens with bated breath as the high priest at last challenges the prisoner himself. Are you then the son of the blessed? I think I see Peter tremble in his shoes. Whatever will he say now? Now he's given himself up, bound hand and foot. What will he say now? He'll never still claim to be Messiah, will he? He'll never still claim to be the Son of God. It'll be suicide if he does. The voice came back from the bound prisoner. I am. And somebody nudged Peter, and Peter looked round, and it was a girl. She says, you're one of them, aren't you? Look here, he says. I'm not with it. I'm not with him. No. If Christ had stood there with a sword drawn and legions of angels, laying his enemies low and claiming to be Son of God, Peter would have been with him to the last last drop of blood. Willingly to give himself up to in- to death and still claim to be God's son. And it says Peter, I'm not with that. I'm sorry, I'm not with that. I'm not with him. He never heard such a suicidal thing in all his life. And it was knowledge, common knowledge in Jerusalem, that when our Lord both claimed to be the Son of God and at the same time willingly gave himself to death, that his chiefest apostles washed his hands of him. I say again, it's arrant nonsense to say that our Lord's claim to give himself to an atoning death as a sacrifice for sin originated with the church. Arrant nonsense. This, the central thing of Christianity, that one should come to our world claiming to be God's son and human together. He claimed to willingly give himself to death. This was a something that originated in the heart of God. Was written in Old Testament scripture. Was spoken to us first by the Lord. First by the Lord, confirmed unto us by them that heard him. And so I come back to my main point. Time and time again, we gather to celebrate the Lord's Supper. We stand, so to speak, on the bedrock of God's divine revelation to men. Oh, cling to it, my young brother. Be you only faithful to the Lord here, and come at his injunction constantly to remember him, and God will write it on your very heart, and you will come to such understanding of God's gospel, such an appreciation of God's divine revelation, that you shall be kept safe from that insidious attack of liberal theology, which is overthrowing the faith of so many. But someone will say, suppose only now that, uh, Christ did want to remind us of his death. Because this is the central thing in Christianity. Why please did he do it this way, to institute a ceremony with bread and wine in which the congregation of the church takes part, receiving that bread and wine? Surely the memory could have been perpetuated somehow else. Someone could have got up and read a book that Christ himself wrote, for he could have written, surely, in which he explained the doctrine of the atonement in full, and we just listened. Why did he make it something in which we not only listened, but to something in which we had personally to take part, eating the bread and drinking the wine? You say, first of all, because the thing graphically portrays his death, the body and the blood separate. So often, so obviously. May I suggest another reason? Because this Lord's Supper is not merely a record, but it is a symbol of a covenant. A symbol of a covenant. A covenant under which we are the beneficiaries. A covenant under which we receive all our spiritual blessing. And as we take the symbol, we reaffirm again and again that we receive God's salvation on God's terms, on the terms of that covenant. You see, this is the new covenant, the cup of the new covenant. New because, uh, it stands distinct from the old covenant. And what was the old covenant? Why, the old covenant, being the Ten Commandments, was put inside the ark which formed the throne of God. The old covenant expressed the principles upon which God proposed to govern that nation of Israel. And he offered them the covenant at the foot of Sinai and said, now these are my terms if you and I are going to be in communion one with another and in relation, and you shall be my people, and I shall be your God, and I shall be your king, and you will be my subjects. Now, here are the terms upon which I propose to, to rule you. Are you prepared for the terms? My sacrifice has obtained for us a great salvation. There are terms there too. As we take these symbols, we are saying, yes, Lord, I receive you as Lord and these your times. Come, let us consider the situations Luke gives it. Luke points out that when our Lord arrived on his final visit to Jerusalem, he found the nation's heart barred against him. Robbers in the temple, vineyard men who had appropriated for their own pockets the vineyard and its produce that belonged to gods, to God. Even as the rightful heir came to the vineyard, they said, this is the heir, we'll kill him and take the inheritance ourselves. Jerusalem city that should have been his, occupied by the enemy. What should he do? He had come as Messiah, as Israel's king, riding upon an ass, herald as the king that cometh in the name of the Lord, but the city was occupied by the enemy, and presently they were to cast him out, put into a tree. Must he go back to heaven defeated? I'll see now. Whereas for many nights before Calvary, he had been going out of the city at nighttime because it wasn't safe for him to stay in the city. During the day, the multitudes hung upon his lips, but, uh, at night he took the precaution of going outside the city because the vineyard men were after him. Came the last night, said he to his disciples, now go into the city, you shall see a man bearing a pitcher of water, a most unusual thing, like an Irishman pushing a pram, you know, a man bearing a pitcher of water. Follow him in. And, uh, find out who owns the house where he goes in. It won't be that man, it will be some other man who owns the house. And speak to him. Why all this secrecy, Lord? Have you made arrangements? Yes, I've made arrangements on the quiet. Because Jerusalem is a hostile city, they're after my blood. Humanly speaking, it's dangerous for me to be found there. But there's one man in Jerusalem who's prepared to take the very best room in his house, and knowing that, uh, my enemies are after my blood, he's prepared to open his door and have me right in the very heart of enemy's territory. And there tonight I go. While all was dark around, in a city that was thirsting for his blood. He not only kept the Passover in that upper room, but he instituted his kingdom. Gave the terms of the covenant, in token gave his body and blood that sealed the covenant. Happy that man who gave his lounge as a place where in enemy territory Christ might establish his kingdom on earth. He forms a picture of every human heart that dares to receive Christ. For this world's night is not yet past. The day cometh, the night is indeed far spent, but it's not yet past. And our Lord is still rejected. All those human hearts that, being in en- enemy territory, have opened the very best room and said, Lord, come in and set up your kingdom here. Ah, those lovely little groups of Christians around the Roman world. When the Caesars raged and tried to blot out the very name of Christ from the earth, all those lovely little homes, those barns, those secret meeting places where a few Christians gathered to take bread and take wine. What doing? Pledging again that they were members of his kingdom, that in this little spot of earth, Christ reigned supreme, their Lord and God. They were his. Ah, think you not it cheered the heart of God and touched the heart of the ascended Christ, when in answer to his request they thus pledged their loyalty? That same heart looks down upon us now, brethren. Nonetheless touched, when in a hostile world you gather, and you break the bread and drink the cup, affirming again that here at least Christ is king. And oh, what a kingdom. What are the terms of his covenant? How much superior to that old first covenant, where the responsibility lay upon men by the keeping of God's law to earn salvation. Oh, what a different covenant this. Where all we have to do as bankrupt sinners is to receive for nothing the salvation that Christ has secured, and with it forgiveness, and with it the promise that God's Holy Spirit shall write his laws upon our hearts and mind. Whereas the Holy Spirit also is witness to us, and he says, I'll write them on their hearts and minds, and their sins and iniquities I will remember no more forever. Oh, what a lovely covenant. We said yes to him when first we came in our bankruptcy. But do we not love to say it as often as we can possibly say it? Look up into his face and take the cup bread and take the cup and say, Lord, I affirm it. I take it. Yes, I do. And had I never done before, I should do it right now. Then they jangled, forgetful of the solemnity of the occasion, forgetful of the depth of the Lord's sufferings. And he reproved them gently, saying, Brethren, now it's not the big man that's the boss. Let the big one serve. The one who serves is greatest. Oh, what a lovely kingdom when the very king holds this viewpoint. He said, you know, I'm among you as one that serveth, you know. Now tell me, said he, who in this world is counted the bigger, the man that serves at table or the people that sit at the table? Well, there's no doubt about that. It's the man that sits as the big man, isn't it? And the man that serves with he's only the small man. You go home tonight, you push a button by the fireplace in your lounge, and presently the waiter comes and says, yes, sir. Oh, wouldn't you feel important? My brother, suppose you could go home tonight and press a button, and God's own son came and said, what would you like? I am among you, said he, as one that serveth, and you're the ones that sit at meat. Oh, how it tugs our hearts. And how can we have it otherwise? Do we not sit at meat? A great banquet of salvation, and we watch him go and serve. Ah, the toil he had to prepare the feast. We sit and eat. It is there, as again we take the bread and take the cup, unworthy to sit and eat, but he insists on doing the serving. It's there that we begin to learn the ways of heaven. How can you do that, my brother, and immediately turn round and try to boss it over your fellow Christian? And says he, yes, ha, he says, gentlemen, now I had to borrow this room. I had to borrow it, you know. It isn't mine, this room. And you continued with me, he said, all this long while, how grateful I am to you men. And we think on the quiet, well, I hadn't done very much. But oh, how grateful Christ is. You've continued with me right to this very present time. It was genuinely a comfort to him, was it not? What would you think if, uh, when he said, now, now, now, my good brethren, you'll be here at Passover hour, won't you? I'd like you to be here to take this bread and wine. And Peter turned around and said, oh, sorry, Lord, but I can't come today. No? I don't think it's important, Lord. No? I don't get much out of it, Lord. I don't think even Peter, though, really knew how much Christ got out of it. You've continued with me. Oh, how he valued it. I'll do better for, for you than this one day, said he. One of these days it won't be any more a borrowed up a room. I'll appoint you a kingdom, and you'll sit and eat and drink with me at my table in my father's kingdom. This for now. You see, he says, I'm rejected. My good brethren, he says, you'll have to pay your own expenses in this world now, for they've cast me out, and I shall be reckoned with the outlaws one of these days, I shall give you a place at my table in my Father's kingdom. Prophesying not only his death, but his coming again. For at this supper are the fundamentals of our faith, his atoning death, his deity, his resurrection, his promised coming again. And in the meantime, Peter, he says, you're running into some trouble presently. Your faith is going to be tested all, Mr. Breaking Point, but I prayed for you, Peter, and you who sit here today, my disciple, are keeping this covenant supper. I pray for you so that on s- of a certainty, your faith shall not fail, and you'll sit down with me in the courts of heaven. Oh, lovely kingdom and lovely king. I to sit with him, be it only a borrowed room and only bread and only wine. Lovely thing to sit with him. While he says, look, and as sure as you sit here today, I shall see to it you'll sit with me at my Father's table in his kingdom, for I shall pray you there. I shall pray for you that your faith shall never fail. At that they went out. Said he, you'll have to pay your expenses and fight your own way, he says, because I am to be, uh, reckoned an outlaw. And for this time, you must be prepared to take your place with me and share my rejection. Why have a supper constantly repeated in which we take part? That in this world that still rejects him, we might as constantly reaffirm our loyalty to the Lord. Or you say that it's only a small thing, and I want to get busy serving the Lord. Oh, I see, yes. Here, what I say now, I'm no expert, but I'm told that when dutiful husbands go away on business, say for six months, they write once a month. I'm told that deluxe husbands, you know, the very super sort of husbands, write, uh, once a week. I have occasionally come across extraordinary men who wrote every day. Very nearly angels, I should reckon. You say I shouldn't bother, old fellow, writing home to your wife. Aren't you, aren't you doing the business for her? I mean, get on with the business. Aren't you earning her a new coat? Well, don't bother to write and tell her anything about that. Just get on with the business. Ah, but love won't have it that way. Affection won't have it that way. He could work the whole six months, but if he never wrote... And it may be he only said that's cold weather today and we had cabbage for dinner or whatever folks say. Uh, but you see, is it not the gesture? You say, but never mind, oh man, even if you don't write, you said I will once, you don't have to keep on saying it, don't you have to keep on saying it? And the Lord says, yes, I know your mind. I should like you to come, please, and reaffirm it to me. Shall we say, Lord, but I'm too busy getting on with your work, shall we? Or shall we not see that the Lord wants it and values it, else had he never requested that we do it? If you walk round the walls of the city of Chester, they will show you into a little museum of a place on the walls, and inside there a table, and on the table a board painted in dark browns and blues, a smudge of meaningless color, it looks. And then the keeper will come and bring a brightly polished tankard and set it down on the board, and as he does so, tell you to look in the side of the tankard, and there reflected in the tankard are these colors. Ah, but now reflected in the curve of that tankard, they are no longer a meaningless shamble of colors. There grows a face. And the face was the face of the exiled king. His loyal followers in a country that was against their king gathered to think about him and plot for him, and as they drank their cup, they put it on the board. The colors meant nothing to the world outside, but to those who know where to look, they saw the very face of the king himself. And the world thinks it's a cheap thing, my brother, they see nothing in that bread and wine. But oh, can you not see as you take that cup and take that ordinary bread, can you not on time see the very face of your absent king? I'm going to be so bold as to go on to nine o'clock. Nobody said I might. I may get into trouble, but there is my first time in uh, Besbrook. And the remedy is with you. Someone will say this is all very good, but this is uh, somewhat remote, isn't it? Uh, devotional may be, but uh, ought we not to have something practical, practical? Indeed, we ought to have something practical, and a tremendously s- practical emphasis in our Christian life. Not good merely to dwell upon our blessings in Christ without seeing our responsibilities. But should we wish to find a place where Christianity blossoms in all its practical implications, we certainly should find no place out better than the Lord's Supper. For when it comes to the practical advancement of Christianity in my life, the real strivings of God's Holy Spirit to make me into a holy man, there is a place where God's Spirit has calculated to do it supremely above all, and that is the Lord's Supper. So Paul writes to the Corinthian church, now alas, in a quagmire of misbehavior, and calls their attention to the Lord's Supper and says, brethren, you must take this supper seriously, you know. The Lord instituted it on the night in which he was betrayed. Ah, ugly word, that any could betray the Lord. When we think of his lordship. Yes, says Paul, I want to talk to you about his lordship. For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you. How that the Lord Jesus, in the night when he was betrayed, took bread. Brethren, he says, if you were to take that supper unworthily, you would be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. For this is the Lord's Supper. We have not merely a savior, but we have a divine Lord. And he has put the seal of his lordship on the command that we break bread and drink wine in memory of him. You say, well, that wouldn't be a very difficult commandment to keep. How does that test our willingness to yield to his lordship? Do we not all delight to come and partake? Ah, but wait a minute, brother. Not quite so easy as that. For if we were to eat it and drink it unworthily, we would be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. How so? By our sins, did they not cause his death? To come then to a ceremony that recalls his death, with sin in our hearts, the very sin that nailed him to the cross, to sit by and see the emblems of his death, and to say, yes, it is the sin I have in my heart that caused his death, but I'm not going to give the sin out. I don't care if it did kill him. I'm going on with it. How should we be better than Judas, who betrayed his Lord for his silver? Now, we may not carelessly eat this sarpa. Ah yes, says somebody, and that's the reason why I don't eat it at all, you know, I never feel worthy to do it. Oh, but my dear brother, I'm sorry, but you're not a liberty to take that view. That sounds holy, I know. You say I'm not worthy to take it, and therefore I don't. Oh, but brother, you're not given permission to stay away. Sorry, you've got to come. Would you say I'm not worthy? You never will be worthy. Well, what can I do to prepare myself? Repent, brother. Repent. My naughty heart mustn't say, now I like my sin, and I know I'm not fit to go to the Lord's Supper, but I like the sin, and I'm going to keep it, so I shall stay away, and that will be all right, for it won't be all right. The Lord has bidden us come and commanded us as we come to repent. He isn't so unrealistic to a- as to ask us to be perfect and sinless, that we cannot be, but he does ask that we discern ourselves. We're not content to go along thinking we're all right. We have the responsibility to discern ourselves. And we ought now to be seeing in ourselves things that we have learned to call sinful that, uh, perhaps ten years ago we were not perturbed about, didn't we? If God is dealing with our hearts, brethren, we ought to be now putting label across this habit and that habit, that sin, and that attitude is wrong that ten years ago we, uh, perhaps weren't aware of. We are asked to discern ourselves and to repent. And coming, ah, what comfort and encouragement we shall receive. Coming in the knowledge of our sinfulness, we shall come again and say, ah, can the Lord still love me? I'd rather the very night he was betrayed, as he took bread, the very night he was betrayed, he went out to die for you. You say I've let him down so much? So be you have, but he'll never let you down. It was the night in which he was betrayed he took the bread and gave it for you. And as we come there and learn our security, we find the grace and the courage to turn round and have a look at ourselves, don't we? Do you not find yourself saying at the breaking of bread as you take the cup, oh but Lord, help me to be different, don't you? And as you see in those emblems, a vivid portrayal of what sin did to Christ, what that lo- lovelessness of heart, what that narrowness of mind, what that bitterness of tongue did for Christ. My brother, don't you find the desire welling up to be a different man, and you, sister, a different woman? Don't you? We must come. We must, uh, discern ourselves, and if we do so, we shall not be judged. But if we don't, uh, discern ourselves and repent and judge ourselves, then that same faithfulness that drove our Lord to give himself even when he was being betrayed, that same faithfulness will impel him in the end to take the rod and use it with resolute and determined love to bring us to repent and get us to drop from our hands the weapons that caused him such hurt and which would only continue to lacerate our souls. And even as we do it, people stand by and say, yes, but suppose he is a failing brother, and I've had to use the rod, and I've had to give him sickness, I've had to take him home prematurely. Now see my pledged love in those emblems. See, and even he who has so failed that I've had to take him home in discipline, but he shall not perish with the world. He himself shall be saved. Oh, in his faithfulness expressed in that supper, we have the secret of deliverance from sinning and the perfection of Christian character. Not only a selfish thing. I read deliberately from chapter ten, which is describing a somewhat different thing from the Lord's supper. It is describing the Lord's table, that table loaded with all the spiritual provisions that Christ has procured for us by his sacrifice, and which we enjoy at any and every time, whether we be at the Lord's Supper or in the prayer meeting or at home in the scullery or at the office or at the shop. Always we sit at the Lord's table, enjoying his benefits. But Paul has been pleased to use the symbols of the Lord's supper to illustrate a principle that applies to the Lord's table. He says, having fellowship with the Lord at his table, it's a communion. It's a sharing and a having something in common. Look, says he, take the loaf. And he's now going to use an illustration from the Lord's Supper. That loaf, that blood, that cup. Take that loaf. It's a communion, you know, a sharing, isn't it? There sit the congregation of the faithful. There's the bread. The bread is broken, and each member takes a little piece, and there are so many there present that by the time the last person has taken the last crumb, there is no bread left. Tell me, where now is the bread? That loaf that was on that table a moment ago, where is it now? Well, says Paul, look, see, this congregation, they being many, they are the loaf, are they not? It's in them physically. If you want to see where that loaf is now, you'll have to get everybody who's eaten it and put them all together, and when you've got them all together, you'll have the whole loaf there, won't you? Even so it is, he says, and everybody who has received from Christ salvation, everybody who has a right to his table. It's a communion, you know. And what we do of a s- o- o- of a Sunday morning as, um, uh, or whenever we do it, we gather for the Lord's Supper. What we do when we take that loaf is to give expression to this, that every single blood-bought child of God that has tasted God's salvation, we are one with them. Not by virtue of some organization. We are one with them, whether we like it or whether we don't like it, we are one with them. For the great loaf of Christ. There's a particle in that man and that man and that man, is there not? And whether we realize or not, the big one loaf of Christ is to be found in everybody, formed at the aggregate of all those individual souls that have tasted and seen that the Lord is gracious. We do well to sing, even as we take the sacred emblems and think primarily of him, we would remember we are one with every saint that loves thy name. But oneness with true believers is to be put at the other extreme from separation from devils. You can't, my brother, says Paul, just go along to that heathen temple. Because that's being one with them, and you can't eat at their table and the Lord's table. I must remind my heart to be faithful, to steer clear of spiritual uncleanness. My dear brother, you businessman, you cannot go along to your secret society and engage in ceremonies to bell Osiris, Bull, and all the other heathen deities, and partake of the Lord's Supper, unless you want to provoke him to jealousy. One with all true Christians, but forever separate from false religion that is energized by the father of lies. We've thought about a lot of things. Our minds will be exceedingly tired, but maybe in the coming days, this little bit or that little bit that the Lord designed specially for you or for me will come back in our quieter moments, and his voice will respeak it again. Pray God he shall find in us a ready heart of loving compliance. Shall we pray? Father, we thank thee for this most holy supper, for thy wisdom and for the love of Christ which ordains it, and for all that it speaks to our hearts. For making it possible for us to gather constantly to celebrate the Lord's Supper in peaceable circumstances, we praise it. We thank thee for the privilege and honor of us affirming our loyalty to the Savior. We pray that thou will find within us ever a readier heart and a more willing zeal, that we may give pleasure to our absent and rejected Lord. Affirm his lordship of our heart and church. Afform his Lord, affirm his lordship in our lives and service. Grant us that, Lord, that honesty of heart that shall discern itself and confess its sin and seek thy grace to be perfected in holiness. Part us then with thy blessing this night, we do beseech thee, as we give thee thanks that as many as have received him, he now prays for them, and one day shall come again and seat them at his table in his kingdom. Till that glorious day, find in us thy ready and humble and affectionate servants, we beseech thee, through that same Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.