In the sermon titled 'The Lord's Supper,' David Green gives a comprehensive refresher on the significance and correct practice of the Lord's Supper, also known as Communion. The sermon emphasizes the importance of revisiting the teachings on this subject, as it is one of the two ordinances given to the Lord's churches, the other being baptism. The sermon references Matthew 26 and 1 Corinthians 11 to highlight the scriptural basis for the practice, pointing out that the Lord's Supper is a reminder and proclamation of Jesus Christ's sacrifice. Green distinguishes between different practices, such as open, close, and closed communion, and argues for the use of wine and unleavened bread, criticizing deviations from this practice as potentially erroneous. He also refutes the Roman Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation, asserting that the elements are symbolic rather than literal transformations into the body and blood of Christ. The sermon stresses the importance of church unity during the Lord's Supper and concludes by urging adherence to scriptural guidelines.

And I wanted to do a kind of a refresher, if you will, on the subject of the Lord's Supper. Lord willing, next week being the fifth Sunday, if I got my calendar straight, Lord willing we will be having the Lord's Supper soon. So just something to consider. And every once in a while it is good to go back and revisit teachings of it. We will be hitting that subject by the time we get to 1st Corinthians 11, but that'll be later rather than simply waiting for that.

I thought this morning we'd go ahead and consider the subject of the Lord's Supper. So if you have your Bibles, let's go to Matthew, Matthew chapter 26. Matthew chapter 26, and we'll begin reading at verse 17. We'll go down to verse 30. Now the first day of the feast of unleavened bread the disciples came to Jesus saying unto him Where wilt thou that we prepare 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 will keep the Passover at thy house with my disciples. The disciples did as Jesus had appointed them. They made ready the Passover. Now when the even was come, he sat down with the 12. As they did eat, he said, Verily, I say unto you that one of you shall betray me.

They were exceeding sorrowful, and began every one of them to say unto him, Lord, is it I? He answered and said, He that dibbeth his hand with me in the dish, the same shall betray me. Son of man goeth as it is written of him, but woe unto that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed. It had been good for that man if he had not been born. Then Judas, which betrayeth him, answered and said, Master, is it I?

He saith unto him, Thou hast said. And As they were eating, Jesus took bread and blessed it and gave it to the disciples and said, Take, eat. This is my body. He took the cup and gave thanks and gave it to them, saying, Drink ye all of it. This is my blood of the New Testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.

But I say unto you, I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom. When they'd sung a hymn, they went out into the Mount of Olives. In this text, we find Jesus as he came with his disciples to have the Passover meal. Jesus and the disciples, the apostles there, all being Jewish, they would have commemorated the Passover just like the Old Testament had given. But on that night, He did not just have the Passover meal, he also instituted what we know as the Lord's Supper, or in some circles they call it Communion, but it is the Lord's Supper is the term that we use.

And so this morning we want to look at this subject, because it is very important. There are but two ordinances of the Lord's churches. There's baptism and then the Lord's Supper in that order. And so it's important for us to every now and again look at these things and practice them, albeit we need to make sure that we're practicing them scripturally. And so we examine the scriptures on these subjects to be sure of what we're doing and to also remind folks what we believe.

There are, as with anything, a lot of differing opinions out there. Indeed, some opinions about the Lord's Supper are flat-out heretical, While there's others who hold to a position that we may not hold to, which is not heresy but just a different opinion, different look at the scriptures. For instance, Just to give you an example, to take this way out of proportion and to practice heresy with the table would be the idea that it doesn't matter the elements that you can have seaweed and salt water. I'm sure you've heard that argument before, that if you were marooned on an island, shipwrecked on an island, and you didn't have any way to take the Lord's Supper, you could use sea water and seaweed. But that's not only incorrect, but that's perhaps heresy.

It could be done in ignorant, but most people I would think would know better as to why we use the elements that we do. A position that wouldn't be heretical but a differing position. There are churches who gather and when they gather to have the Lord's Supper they don't pour the wine into separate cups. They use one cup, and they pass the one cup around to everybody in the church. That's certainly not heresy.

That's a different way of looking at the scriptures. And so we look at those things. You know, some good and godly brethren, Some good and godly Baptist brethren have taken the position of grape juice instead of wine. I believe that's wrong. I don't believe in and of itself it's heresy, however it could be.

It could be, And it depends on what they do with their teaching and that sort of thing. So if they somehow discount the blood in their teaching, then certainly that is a problem. But if it comes down to just a matter of a difference in element, maybe they were in some sort of a group that taught abstinence and that sort of thing and they don't know any better, well, I don't believe we can pin heresy on those types of people. There are those who fence the table differently than what we do. And by fencing, I mean some people practice open communion, which really is not much of a fence at all.

The only fence that they have is that you be saved before you partake of the Lord's Supper. Then there's the position of what we might call close communion or denominational communion, where anybody within the denomination can partake. And so if we've been Baptist held to that position, we would say, well, anybody can partake of the Lord's Supper as long as they're a member of a like church and good standing. Believe it or not, as strange as that sounds to our ears, there have been in the past, I don't know of anybody today directly, but there were good brethren who held to that position in the past. We hold here to the position of closed communion or restricted communion, meaning that the fence, the table is fenced in this way.

And that is that only the members in good standing of this church are permitted to partake of the Lord's Supper. And so we'll look at some of those things as we go along. And so let's get into the Scriptures here. This is not the only text where we find about the Lord's Supper. Of course I mentioned 1st Corinthians 11 if you want to hold your place there and go over to 1st Corinthians chapter 11.

Again, verse 23, Paul is writing to the church, Corinth, he says, For I received of the Lord that which I also delivered unto you, that the Lord Jesus, the same night in which he was betrayed, took bread. When he'd given thanks, he break it and said, Take eat, this is my body, which is broken for you, this do in remembrance of me. After the same manner also he took the cup when he had supped, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood, this do ye as oft as you drink it in remembrance of me. For as often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup, you do shoe the Lord's death till he come. Wherefore, whosoever shall eat this bread and drink this cup of the Lord unworthily shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord, but let a man examine himself and so let him eat of that bread, drink of that cup.

For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord's body. For this cause Many are weak and sickly among you and many sleep. For if we would judge ourselves we should not be judged. But when we are judged we are chastened of the Lord that we should not be condemned with the world. Wherefore my brethren when you come together to eat tearing one for another and if any man hunger let him eat at home that you come not together unto condemnation.

And the rest will I set in order when I come." And so Paul addresses this, this subject of the Lord's Supper, and as we've seen going through our study of 1st Corinthians, the church at Corinth was a mess. Part of their mess was that they were treating the Supper as a meal. So they were misusing and abusing the Lord's Supper. It's not to be thought of as a family meal, it's not to be thought of as the buffet, it's not to be thought of as going to mom's house to eat whatever you want. And so we find that there in 1 Corinthians.

We also must mention what we're talking about what it's not. It's not a meal, it's also not a sacrament. In other words, the Roman Catholics, they teach that this is a sacrament, and that there's some property of salvation in it. That's not the case. Taking the Lord's Supper is not going to save you.

Neither is not taking it going to condemn you to hell. You see, it has nothing to do with salvation. That's the problem with Roman Catholicism, and that's one of the reasons why I don't believe that the Roman Catholic Church should be considered a Christian church. They don't preach the right gospel. Their gospel is one of works.

And so, you know, Galatians stands as a testimony against that sort of thing. Certainly, Roman Catholicism is not Certainly, Roman Catholicism is not Christianity. And indeed, I would say it's more of a cult than anything. While we talk about Catholicism, we must mention that the Supper is symbolic. The wine and the bread, There's no magical anything going on in the supper insofar as the doctrine of transubstantiation, which is a Roman Catholic doctrine, is false.

In fact, it's a terrible teaching. What they say is that the bread becomes the body of Christ and the wine becomes the blood of Christ. And that's just not true. That's not what is taught in the Bible. Now the argument sometimes is given, like we read in Matthew, and by the way you can read of the Supper and other Gospels as well, but we see Jesus as he said things like this is my body.

He did not mean that literally, no more than when he said that I am the vine. He did not mean he was literally a vine, right? And so when we consider these things, we must take the Scriptures literally where we can, but understand when he stood before them and he said, this is my body, as he had a piece of bread, how could he have had two bodies? It doesn't make any sense. That don't even make good nonsense.

And so he was not meaning literally that this was his body. Even now, it cannot be his literal body. The body of Christ has limitations. While Christ as God is everywhere, we must understand that in the scriptures we are taught. Hebrews chapter 1 for instance.

Hebrews chapter 1. In verse 3, speaking of Jesus, who being in the brightness of his glory and the express image of his person and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, he what? Sat down on the right hand of the majesty on high." Chapter 10 of Hebrews, Hebrews chapter 10, verse 12, but this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins forever sat down on the right hand of God. So where is his body now? Well, in now?

Well, in heaven, in the throne room of our God, not physically in the supper. Yes, He's with us. He's always with us. But His body is not, you see. So what is the Lord's Supper?

The Lord's Supper is a reminder of our Lord's death on the cross for our sins. As the wine is poured out, we're reminded that He willingly shed His blood on the cross for our sins. As the bread is broken, we're reminded that Christ's body was broken for us, that He died physically for us. It's more than just a reminder, though. It's a proclamation.

We do shoo the Lord's death. The King James has it translated. We demonstrate his death. We illustrate it, if you will. Maybe another way of putting it.

Till he come. But, oh beloved, it's not just a picture. It's not just an illustration. Sometimes we miss that. I think part of the reason is that the Catholics have taken and gone too far with it.

They make something out of it. By the way, Some of the reformers did the same thing. They followed suit. And so we look at that and say, that's not a ditch we want to fall on. We don't want to go there, and we shouldn't.

Sometimes we get into another ditch. That is just thinking of it as a reminder, thinking of it as just a picture. It is a reminder and it is a picture. But, oh beloved, it's a proclamation. It's the Gospel.

And when we gather together to partake of the Lord's Supper, it is worship. When we eat of the bread and drink of the wine, we are worshiping our God. We ought not to think of it as a separate service from the worship service. It is part of it. And we gather to worship Him who does walk in the midst of His churches.

And of course, as Paul wrote there in 1 Corinthians 11 and verse 26, For As often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you do show, proclaim, demonstrate the Lord's death till He come. And so when we gather together, we're reminded that it's not his physical body which is here. It's not his blood, but one day, perhaps even very soon, faith will become sight. And when that day happens, when the Lord comes back, we'll have no need for the picture. We'll have no need for the supper.

No, there'll be another supper. We'll be eating and dining with him physically. But as we partake, we're reminded that someday, someday we'll no more have the Lord's Supper. There'll be no more need for the wine and the bread, for we'll have Him, you see. You see.

Over in 1st Corinthians chapter 10, verse 16, 16 and 17, the cup of Verse 16, verse 17, The cup of blessing which we bless is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The blood which we break is in unto communion of the body of Christ. For we being many are one bread and one body, for we are all partakers of that one bread." There is something to be said for the church coming together to partake of the Lord's Supper. We come together, first of all, to commune with Christ. No, he's not physically in the bread or in the wine, but he's physically with his church.

Or spiritually, rather, spiritually with His church. And so we gather together in worship, communing with Christ and with one another. And indeed, that's another point that Paul brings out, the bread. The bread there in verse number 17. For we many, we being many are one bread and one body.

The unity of the church is demonstrated. When we come together and the table is set and we partake of the supper, it's limited to the church. It's not open for everybody. There's no unity there. It's not even open for other churches.

While there is some unity with our brothers and sisters of like faith and order, there's not the same unity of what happens inside the local church with the local church. I mean think about our church, Consider other churches. You think about the problems and the issues that we have had. But then on the flip side, you think of the joys and the blessings that we've had. Other churches don't know about those things.

They've not been a part of that. And when we think about other churches, you understand that they have problems, they have issues, they have blessings that we don't know about either. There is a unity that happens within local church. And so that is demonstrated with the one loaf, the one bread. We think about coming together to commune with Christ and to commemorate His death.

The question does come up, and I mentioned this a while ago. What are the elements? What are the elements? Well, in our text in Matthew, Over there in Matthew chapter 26. Now the first day of the feast of unliving bread, verse 17 says, the disciples came to Jesus saying to him, where wilt thou that we prepare for thee to eat the Passover?

That supper happened on the night that he was betrayed, but it was at the Passover meal. In that Passover meal, they had wine. They had unliving bread. There is no indication anywhere in any of scripture that Jesus used anything different. The cup was not different than what he had used at the Passover, and the bread was unleavened as well.

Some brethren, sometimes being well-meaning, other times they might be rebellious, but some take a different approach to this. But If you go back through history, the only time that this was ever an issue began in the Prohibition Movement here in this country. There was never any Baptist, never any theologian, never any preacher who thought it was anything different than wine for the Lord's Supper. Someone says, well, what would you do if there was a prohibition movement in our day like it was in their day? Well, I'll tell you what I would do.

And that is that I would break the law in order to properly observe the Lord's Supper. It doesn't matter what kind of rules or regulations or what kind of executive order or Congress might put something on, I don't know. But even if it's a constitutional amendment, we must obey God's law rather than man's. And so I doubt it will happen in our day, but if it ever did, not to fear we would still observe the Lord's Supper as it is commanded. And by the way, there were some churches who still did, even during the Prohibition times.

There were some who risked being in jail or whatever for the cause of Christ. The thing about this we consider, if you go over to Luke chapter 22, Luke chapter 22 verse 20, Again this is from another passage in the in the Gospels there. It says, likewise also the cup after supper saying this cup is the New Testament in my blood which is shed for you. Again the emphasis here is that it was the cup after supper. Furthermore in 1st Corinthians when They were, when Paul wrote to them, the church there, in 1 Corinthians 11, and he was telling them about their problem about the supper and their misuse of it, he says there in this He says there in this letter, he says, Inverse.

Verse 21, sorry I was too far down. Verse 20, he says, When ye come together therefore into one place, this is not to eat the Lord's Supper. For in eating, everyone taketh before other his own supper, and one is hungry and another is drunken. What have you not houses to eat and to drink in, or despise you the Church of God? Shame them that have not.

What shall I say to you? Shall I praise you in this? I praise you not." Paul has a way with words when he wrote to the churches, and one of the things he says to the church of Corinth is, if we put it in David Green vernacular, I guess, he says, I don't know what you're doing, but it it's not It's not the Lord's Supper You see When you come together therefore in one place, it's not the Lord's Supper. Well, that's what they said they were doing. But Paul says that ain't what it is.

Y'all have made a meal out of this. But one of the things that he says about it is that one is hungry and another is drunken. He doesn't condemn them for using wine. He just tells them they've got houses that they should be doing that in. They've got houses where they should be eating and drinking and having meals in.

Obviously, being drunk is condemned in other passages, but understand this, he did not correct them for using wine. If you drink too much grape juice, you can get sick off of it, but you won't get drunk, you see. And so, this is the element that we use, and the reason for it is it's biblical, going all the way back through the New Testament and even back into the Old Testament when we consider the Passover, because these things are intertwined. Is that the Passover meal where Jesus instituted? Institute.

If I go to, if Tina invites me over to eat some shrimp, I go over to Barrington's house, I sit down at their table and they bring the shrimp and set it down. What kind of guest would I be if I say, oh no, this isn't the right thing to have, let's have something else instead. That would offend the head of the house, Barry, because it's not my house, it's his house. It would offend Tina because she spent all that time cooking the shrimp and who am I to say well let's have some other food instead. I'm going somewhere with this.

But you understand proper etiquette. You get invited to somebody's house, you sit down at their table, it's their table, it's not yours. This is the Lord's Supper. Who are we to sit down at it and say, well, here's a better ingredient, no matter the noble excuse that's given. You see, someone says, well, I've got alcoholics in my church, and they're recovering alcoholics, and they've made a vow to not drink any wine, and so that's why we switched to grape juice.

That sounds very noble. But do we have that authority? And the answer is no, we don't. No, we don't. When Jesus spoke to his church in Matthew 28, he said, all authority, all power in the King James, but all authority is given to me in heaven and in earth.

He didn't give churches all authority, all power to run however way we want on these things. Yes, there are some things that we can we can say well in the worship service maybe it could be done this way versus that way we can you know change the order of the service we can have three songs instead of one, and that sort of thing. We could have a song at the beginning, a song at the end, we could have, you know, just all sorts of things that we're free to change. The supper, no. We are bound by this.

There's no example nor commandment given for us to use any other ingredient but wine and unleavened bread. Why? Because this is a picture of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, His death on the cross, and we don't want to muddle it up with our own opinions. As I said, some churches have differing opinions about where to fence the table. Table.

But in Matthew chapter 26, Matthew 26, We read verse 17 a while ago. Let's read verse 18. He said, Go into the city to such a man, and say unto him, The Master saith, My time is at hand, I will keep the Passover at thy house with my disciples." Verse 20 says, "...Now when the even was come, he sat down with the twelve. Were there other believers in the area? Absolutely there were.

But Jesus only met with the twelve. There's some debate as to whether Judas left before the supper. Some men say he did, some men say he didn't. And if you read through the Gospels, you'll find that he probably did. But understand something, even if he was there through the whole time, Even if he was there through the Passover meal and on into the Lord's Supper, understand that there was nothing to keep him from partaking of it because he was, let's not forget, he was a member in good standing with the church.

And so whether he was there or whether he wasn't, that doesn't change the doctrine of closed communion or restricted communion. What you've got is either way, whether there were 11 or whether there were 12, it was fenced in such a way that we would term it closed communion or restricted communion. Jesus met with His church. Now let's understand, not all of the church was present because by the time you read over in Acts there were 120. Not everybody was there at the time when he instituted it, but he instituted it there with these men so that they could take and teach it to others.

My point is that he didn't open it up for everybody. He didn't send out an open invitation. He didn't tell them to tell such a man, the master says, my time is a hand, I'll keep the pass over at thy house with my disciples, and you can come if you want. No, no, we didn't say that. Jesus had specific directions given.

It's also implied in the wording of 1st Corinthians chapter 11, if you go back there and let's point something out here as we bring this to a close here very shortly but in 1st Corinthians chapter 11 verses 18 through 20 over 17 now in this that I declare unto you, I praise you not that you come together not for the better but for the worse. Again, he's really hitting them hard because of this, their abuse of the supper. He says, and again this is David Green vernacular, but he says, you're coming together but it'd be better off if you didn't come together. That's a pretty harsh way of putting it, but that's what he's saying. They made a mess out of this.

He says, for first of all, when ye come together in a church, I hear that there be divisions among you, and I partly believe it. For there must be also heresies or divisions among you, that they which are approved may be made manifest among you. When ye come together, " notice he says, ye when you all come together, therefore into one place this is not the Lord's Supper. And so notice he's not saying when we come together, he's saying when you all come together. Paul was not a member of the church of Corinth, But when they came together into one place, he wasn't including himself there.

By believing this and holding to this practice of closed communion, we're not doubting somebody's salvation, we're doubting somebody's sincerity. We're not saying that other people are second rate. You know, If someone came from another church and was visiting with us, they're just as much a child of God as we are. If someone came into this building who had never joined any church, they're just as much of a child of God as we are. But when it comes to the Lord's Supper, we must hold to this practice of closed communion, practice of closed communion.

Else, we might be unknowingly inviting people in who perhaps have been excluded from other churches or perhaps even not associated with any church. Chapter 10 verse 16 as I bring this to a close. The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ. It's not a time of social gatherings.

It's not something to be taken lightly, something serious. Something that we rejoice in, to be able to partake of. It's one of the ordinances that the Lord has given to His church. And so we look forward to partake of the supper as the Bible teaches. May God add a blessing to the preaching of his word.