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During this week, we're going to look at a line of things that maybe is popular amongst the saints in Vancouver assemblies, and that is we're going to look at church truth in the New Testament scriptures. And, uh, well, I come from the other side of the Atlantic. I wonder if my church truth is just the same as your church truth. But we have the same Bible, and so we should come to the same conclusions. So commencing tomorrow evening, in fact, this afternoon as well, we should be looking at some of the things to do with the local assembly in the Holy Scriptures. Now this afternoon, I'm going to talk to you about the Lord's Supper, and we shall start our reading in the Acts of the Apostles, please, and chapter nineteen.
Acts chapter nineteen verse twenty seven. So that not only is this our craft in danger to be set at naught, but the temple of the great goddess Diana should be despised, and her magnificence should be destroyed, who all Asia and the world worshipeth. Now chapter twenty one. Then Paul took the men, and the next day, purifying himself with them, entered into the temple to signify the days, to signify the accomplishment of the days of purification until that an offering had been offered for every one of them.
Now, in between those two, read chapter twenty please. Verse five. These going before carried for us at Troas. We sailed away from Philippi after the days of unleavened bread and came unto them to Troas in five days, where we abode seven days. Now, from the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached, Paul discoursed unto them, intending to depart on the morrow, and continued his speech until midnight. There were many lights in the upper chamber where they were gathered together, and there sat in a window a certain young man named Eutychus, being fallen into a deep sleep, and as Paul discoursed, uh, was long preaching, he sank down with sleep and fell down from the third loss and was taken up dead.
Paul went down and fell on him, and embracing him said, trouble not yourselves, for his life is in him. When he therefore was come up again and had broken bread and eaten and talked a long while, even till break of day, he departed, and they brought the young man alive and were not a little comforted. That will suffice for our reading at the moment. Possibly you think these are strange passages to read when we're going to talk about the Lord's Supper. But I want you to notice that the Spirit of God has grouped together for us three temples in these particular chapters. In chapter nineteen there's the temple of Diana of the Ephesians.
In chapter twenty one there's the temple of God in Jerusalem, and in between, of course, there's the local assembly of God's people in Troas, which you remember the New Testament calls a temple of God. So you have three temples the Spirit of God has brought together. The greatest temple of pagan idolatry, and the greatest temple existing at that time, of course, of Jewish worship. And then a local assembly, which is, of course, an inner sanctuary of God. It is the most holy place, if you like, for God to be resident in the midst of his people.
When I examine Acts chapter uh nineteen, I find there's a temple there that, as I say, was the wonder of its day. Model of Ionic architecture. It enshrined within, within it a stone that is supposed to have fallen down from Jupiter, which represented the goddess Diana. She was the goddess of everything that was filthy and immoral and vile, summed up in the goddess of fertility. In that temple, everything was unholy and impure, and the saints of God did not meet there, though it was one of the most wonderful buildings that has ever been erected.
In chapter uh twenty one, you have the temple of God in Jerusalem, which is, of course, Zerubbabel's temple of Ezra chapter three, that was partially destroyed and then rebuilt and became Herod's temple in New Testament days. You remember they had spent forty and six years in refurbishing that temple in the days when the Lord Jesus was here on earth. The saints of God had met there. In the ministry of our Lord Jesus, the early chapters in his life surround the temple. There came a time when he looked round about on all these things and recognized it was even tied in that kind of worship, and he went out of the temple to go to Bethany, picture of a New Testament assembly.
Ichabod could be written over the temple of God in Jerusalem. It had been God's house, but now it was left unto them their house, and it was desolate. So one was the greatest temple of paganism, the other a great temple of God. The saints of God met in neither place. By way of contra distinction, where did the saints meet? The Spirit of God takes us to Troas. It was a third lodge. It was an upper room. It was so unsuited for public gatherings that a young man had to get almost into the window, and he fell out of it, of course, in order, I judge, to get some fresh air.
It was heated with oil lamps. It was badly ventilated. The young man, possibly having spent many hours that day in work, for remember, it was not a holiday day, the first day of the week in Troas, and he falls down asleep, and he's taken up dead. That is where the saints of God met. And so you see, by way of contradistinction, that the pagan world has wonderful buildings in which to worship. In Old Testament things, wonderful buildings in which to work, to worship, each part of those building being typical originally in meaning of the person of Christ.
The saints of God do not meet in fine architectural buildings, and there is nothing about the places where they gather that is of symbolic or typical meaning. That belongs to Old Testament days, and there is nothing like that about a New Testament assembly. We are not living in the days when the temple and the tabernacle were shadows. We live in the days of the substance, and we do not need any shadows because we have Christ in the midst and the word of God by the Spirit that fully reveals Christ to our souls. Now, I'm not saying you should sell this hall and get a room over a stable.
Not suggesting things like that. It's good to have a good hall. It's good to be comfortably housed as an assembly of God's people. But when you come to New Testament things, it's not the ornateness of the building or the typicalness of the furnishings. It is not where we gather, but to whom we gather. That is the important thing in New Testament. And so we come to that text that you know so well in your country, where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them. And you say, just what exactly does that mean? Well, it's very evident, isn't it?
You go to a sign writer, and you get him to paint a notice board for your hall, and you paint on the top of it, believers gathered to the name of the Lord Jesus, and you put underneath Matthew eighteen twenty and of course that makes us a company gathered to the name of the Lord Jesus, does it? Does it now? Just putting the name outside. Or we get somebody to paint it and we put it up in the hall. Where is it? Here we are, got it behind me. And there it is. And so we gather to the name of the Lord Jesus because we put a text up in the building? No, no.
We profess to gather to the name of the Lord Jesus, and by that we imply that other believers do not gather to the name of the Lord Jesus. And does that make us a company gathered to the name of the Lord Jesus? After all, is it only a matter of words? Only a matter of profession? Well, let's examine it. As I look around Christendom, I find that there are saints of God gathered to all kinds of names. Some gather to the name of ordinances. Some gather to the names of church government. Some gather to the names of great and lordly men of God. And so, by way of distinction from all them, we say, well, we don't gather to any name.
We gather only to the name of the Lord Jesus. And if that is what you profess, and if that is what you do, you are right. For God did not want his people to gather to the names of godly men or ordinances or principles, but he wanted them to gather to the name of the Lord Jesus and recognize no denominational name. So it is right that we avoid like a plague every denominational name, even that name called Brethren with a capital B. It is right if you set aside all those names and every name that men could give that distinguishes you from other saints of God.
There is only one name to which God would have the saints of God to gather. It is the name of the Lord Jesus. But again, I ask you, is it only a matter of profession? Is it only a matter that we call ourselves something different to everybody else? Or is there anything else in that? I remember that in my Bible, name means character. I repeat that. Name is indicative of character. And when we profess as companies of God's people to gather to the name of the Lord Jesus, we profess to gather according to his character. Taking the position of gathering to the name of the Lord Jesus puts moral and spiritual demands upon the shoulders of the saints.
It is not an empty boast to gather to the name of the Lord Jesus, but it means that in the assembly of God's people, his name is recognized. His lordship is owned. His word is obeyed. His sovereignty is the overruling thing in a company of the people of God. Let me say, you could have the text on the outside of the hall, and you could have the text painted on the wall inside, and you could profess to be gathered to the name of the Lord Jesus, but if the company is not morally and spiritually in accord with the character of Christ, that is not a gathering, gathered to the name of the Lord Jesus.
And it cannot claim the text, where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them. We should not take a text and make that text a center of gathering. And we should not take a text and use that text as though it means us, and it separates us from all the rest of the saints of God. That text demands moral character. It demands that in an assembly so gathered, we should recognize in the things we do when we are gathered together, the lordship of Christ. It means that the members of the assembly, when they are in their homes and when they go about their day by day duties, should see to it that their characters correspond with the character of Christ.
When a company of God's people can say that corporately and individually they act and live in accord with the character of Christ, then they can claim, where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them. We should search our hearts to see if our companies are gathered, if the company to which we individually belong recognizes in everything the authority of the scripture, the lordship of Christ, the leading of the spirit, and that our characters corporately and our and individually own a likeness to the character of Christ.
Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them. That is where the saints of God gather. So we come to Troas, and we say it's not in the temple of Diana of Ephesians. It's not in the Judaistic abandoned temple of God in Jerusalem. It's not in s- any specially built place, but it is the person to whom we gather that makes the company what it is, a temple of God by the Holy Ghost. Next thing I want you to learn from these chapters is that it tells me that the saints of God gather together on the first day of the week to break bread.
Have you ever thought when the Lord Jesus instituted the Lord's Supper? You say, well, of course he did it on the first day of the week. He didn't. He didn't do anything of the kind. You might differ with me as to the day of the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus. I think it's Thursday, maybe you think it's Friday. Scroggie thought it was Wednesday. Doesn't matter, really. What I'm getting at is this, that the Lord Jesus instituted the Lord's Supper on Passover day, which was either Thursday or Friday. He did not institute the Lord's Supper on the first day of the week.
Then why don't you and I break bread on some other day than the first day of the week? Why have we clamped down on the first day of the week and only meet on the first day of the week to break bread if the Lord Jesus instituted the supper on Thursday or Friday. When you turn over from the institution of the supper to the early chapters of the Acts of the Apostles, you find that one of those four things in which they continued steadfastly was the breaking of bread. And when did they break bread in Acts chapter two. You look up Mr. Kelly's translation, please, of Acts chapter two, you will find this, that they ate their meat with gladness and singleness of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people.
But before it says that, it says they broke bread at home. At home. Not in the assembly, but at home did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart. And it seems evident from the first pages of the Acts of the Apostles that whenever the saints of God met in a social way in those days, they would add to their social meal the breaking of bread in remembrance of the Lord Jesus. That develops in the New Testament scriptures until you have, in apostolic days, what are called the Agapis, your feasts of love.
Both Paul and Jude talk about, and Peter, your feasts of love, the Agapis, wherein the saints of God gather together, and they associated with their gathering for a meal, the breaking of bread, the agapes. Jude and Peter will show you that that kind of gathering very soon corrupted, so that false teachers were present on those occasions and used those opportunities to spread their error among the saints of God. And Jude doesn't speak of the agapes in- with favor. Peter doesn't speak of the agapist with favor.
Do you remember they had something very similar in Corinth? For Paul says of the assembly in Corinth, when ye come together, it is not to eat the Lord's Supper. Note that word not. It is not. And why was it not? For when they came together, one was drunken and another was hungry, and they were bringing their own feast with them, and each little section was having a good feast of their own, and intermixed with all that, they got the breaking of bread. And that is what Paul condemns them for. And if I read my Bible rightly, when Paul says, let a man examine himself and so let him eat, he's talking about examining their behavior at what they call the Lord's Supper.
For they were turning the Lord's Supper into nothing but a replica of an idolatrous feast that would be characteristic of the pagans around them. So that in the early chapters of the Acts, they broke bread not only on Lord's Day, but they broke bread on week days whenever the saints seemed to be gathered together for an ordinary meal. The fact that it degenerated puts a warning light up for you and I, in order that we might turn again to the scriptures and see whether that state of things was allowed to continue, or whether the Spirit of God would draw them back to the original pattern of the Lord's Supper as outlined for them for by the Lord Jesus.
When you come to Acts chapter twenty, I have a little bit of light cast upon things by the Spirit of God, and I find this, upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread. The context of this is Paul in a hurry. He had made up his mind to get to Jerusalem by a certain date. Theologians, some of them would say he was right, and some would say he was wrong. But we're not here to put Paul on the carpet this afternoon, so we let him be. But anyway, he was in a terrible hurry. He wanted to get Jerusalem by a certain feast day, and because of that, he did not sidetrack in his journey to go to Ephesus, but he sent for the elders of the Ephesian assembly to come and meet him at Miletus.
He had but a brief one-day visit with those elders, wept with them because they thought they would see his face no more. It was a sad occasion, but call- Paul could spare them no longer, for Paul was in a terrible hurry. Then we must ask ourselves, if Paul was in such a hurry that he could only spend one day with the elders of Ephesus at Miletus. Why did he spend seven days at Troas? Why? Examine the passage, and you will find that he remained at Troas seven days, that he left Troas early on Monday morning, which indicates that he had arrived at Troas early on Monday morning, just a week.
Ah, the Lord's Day was over. The occasion of the assembly in Troas gathering together to break bread was over. Paul had arrived too late for the meeting of the saints to remember the Lord Jesus in the breaking of bread. What did Paul do? Well, you say, Paul, you know, it doesn't really matter what day of the week you break bread on. We'll have it Monday this week, a special one. No, no, he didn't do that. You say, Paul, even though all the saints by now were gathering on the first day of the week to break bread, you're an apostle, Paul. How about I'll do it for one week? You're important and you're in a hurry. How about that?
No, he didn't do that. Paul in a hurry, with all his apostolic authority, did not send a message round to the members of the assembly, we break bread Monday or Tuesday this week. No, he had to wait. An apostle in a hurry had to wait until the saints came together on the first day of the week to break bread. Which shows you this, that between the Acts of the Apostles chapter two and the Acts of the Apostles chapter twenty, it had become such a recognized thing in the churches of God's people that you gather together on the first day of the week to break bread, that Paul, with apostolic authority, could not alter it.
You got that, young believers? That is why you and I gather together on the first day of the week to break bread. Somebody says, well, if the early saints gathered together on the first day of the week to break bread, did they change the Sabbath from the seventh day to the first day? I come from a country, of course, the north part of the country in which I live, they all talk about the Sabbath, and they mean the Lord's Day, and they're Sabbatarian in everything that they do. Is it true now that Christianity has changed the Sabbath from the seventh day to the first day?
And the answer is no. Seventh-day Adventists would tell you that Constantine the emperor, when he embraced Christianity, or to put it more plainly, when he paganized Christianity, that he changed the Sabbath day from the seventh day to the first. Well, if the church altered it, or if worse, Constantine altered it, it would be about time we changed it back, for the church has no right to alter anything. Constantine, I wonder if the dear man was ever saved. Well, has the church changed the seventh day to the first?
The answer is that there's all the difference in the world between the Sabbath and the first day of the week. It's the difference between the Old Testament and the New. It's the difference between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant. For under the Old Covenant, you work six days, then you get a day off. That is, you work, and then you get the rest you've earned. That's the principle of law, isn't it? Works first, then blessings. But the principles of grace are, you get your blessings first, and then you go and work. And so the Lord's Day, we get our blessings first, and then we go and work.
If we lived in the Old Testament, we'd work, and then we'd get our blessings. So the difference between the seventh day, the Sabbath, and the first day, the Lord's Day, is the difference between law and grace. There's no connection between the one and the other. They're the opposite ends of the week and the opposite ends of divine dealing with men, the difference between law and grace. And so they came together on the first day of the week to break bread. Well now. The thing is next, what did they come together for? And our passage says they came together to break bread.
And I assure you that's exactly what they did. I know some wise agers will go a few verses lower down and says, when he came up and he'd broken bread and eaten, let's say, you know, there's a definite article there, and that sounds awfully convincing. But the definite article isn't always convincing when you're dealing with the New Testament scriptures. For in Luke chapter twenty four, the Lord Jesus was shown unto them in the breaking of the bread, and I never heard anybody yet teach that at the end of that walk to Emmaus, when the Lord Jesus broke bread, that they celebrated the Lord's Supper. No, but it's got a definite article. So watch your definite articles, but don't be dogmatic about it.
And while it's got a definite article in Acts chapter twenty, when after he had raised the young man from the d- from death and he'd come up again, then of course he had his breakfast. He broke bread, and then he went on his journey. But when they came together in the verses we commenced reading, they came together to break bread. What do you come together for on Lord's Day morning? Remember being in a large city in England some years ago, and, uh, after breaking bread, I spoke on this chapter, and I said, well, if you had in the name of the place today the most learned expositor in all the world, you would not come together to hear him speak, you would come together to break bread, for breaking bread is more important than listening to any man speak.
After the meeting, one of the good brethren came up to me and said, you know, Brother Goody, you didn't know what you said this morning. So what do you mean? Well, he said, Sidlo Baxter is in our town this weekend. He's addressing the big gathering of the en- a Evangelical Union of the city. And it was suggested, he said, that he should be invited to come along on Lord's Day morning to break bread with the assembly, and that we should curtail the worship part of the meeting to let Sidlo Baxter preach a sermon. You see, I just put my finger right on the thing, didn't know what had happened, but I got it right there. And though Sidlo Baxter is a godly man, I understand, I've never met him, I understand an extremely godly man and an expositor, I suppose, without compare of the word of God in our day.
But if he were here, you would not come together to listen to Sidlo Baxter. The saints didn't come together for that. They came together to break bread. But you say Paul was there, but they didn't come together to hear Paul. They came together to break bread. And I want us to get it clear in our minds that it is far more important for saints of God to come together to break bread and to remember the Lord Jesus by so doing than listening to any expositor, however great he may be.
In Christendom, once in three months, is it? In Christendom, once in three months, is it? They break bread. But the attachment to their various places of worship is not because of the breaking of the bread. It's because of the attractiveness, the eloquence of the man who does the preaching. They talk about our minister in our church, and that's why they go and listen to him. They do not come together primarily to break bread. They come together to listen to a particular man.
But the disciples came together to break bread. There is a departure taking place in some assemblies of God's people today, where they have stated ministry after the breaking of bread. That is to say, they do not have too long a breaking of bread session, maybe a little bit shorter than we generally have, and then they arrange with a man to deal with a certain subject after the breaking of bread. And of course, if it's a good preacher, well, you must be there to break bread because he's going to speak there. If he's not a good preacher, maybe a local, well, you could be allowed to lie in bed, couldn't you?
And so they come together according to the attractiveness of the man. Hope you never depart into that in Vancouver. The saints of God do not have before them in Troas the wonder of Paul's ministry, nor the attractiveness of such a great man. But just the same, whether Paul's there or not there, the attractiveness is Christ, and they come together to break bread. Is that clear? In the assemblies of God's people, with the lack of one man ministry, let us beware of coming together to listen to men, or because certain men are there.
You come together to do what the Lord Jesus said, do this for remembrance of me, and it was to break bread. The Lord's Supper has two titles in the scriptures. It's called the Breaking of Bread and the Lord's Supper. The Breaking of Bread is what we do. The Lord's Supper is what he gets. You say, what do you mean by that? Notice it's not your supper. It's not the Christian's supper. It's not the assembly's supper. It's the Lord's supper. He does the feeding.
He's the one who eats. When you and I commune in our hearts on the loveliness of Christ, that meditation of Christ rises to the nostrils of God, to the palate of God, and he feeds. It is the Lord's Supper. We do not come to get, we come to give on Lord's Day morning. So the disciples came together to break bread. You'll notice, please, that Paul took advantage of the fact that the saints were together to discourse with them. It's more a kind of Bible reading than an address, this word.
He discoursed with them for a long while, maybe not as long as some folks think, for they would gather together in the evening. They would be, by large majority, slaves, and it was not a holiday. And so they came together when their work tasks were finished to break bread. That may be why the young man fell asleep. He'd been working hard already that day, and they came together to break bread. Paul took the opportunity of talking to them about divine things. And thus, in our gatherings together, as guided by the Spirit of God, when the saints gather together to break bread, it is an occasion where the Spirit may lead someone to talk to the saints about the things of Christ or even something practical at the close of the meeting.
And so here you have the idea, they came together to break bread. Paul takes the opportunity of discoursing. And so there is a place for the ministry of the word of God. You'll notice, please, that when they came together to break bread, Paul will come in here, and he will tell us what they do when they come together to break. Now, my grandfather was a Salvation Army officer, and, uh, he was seventy years old and blind when he got baptized. When he came into assembly fellowship, he told me he could not understand the Lord's Day morning meeting.
That is when he first came in amongst us. He'd been used to a Salvation Army holiness meeting, where the band doesn't make as much noise as it generally does, and the music and the singing might be quite nice, and they will give devotional ministry to the saints of God, I understand. I haven't been there since I was two years old, or maybe no, five was the last time I went to Salvation Army, but they do have a rather nice morning meeting. But the change of coming into an assembly of God's people with no music, maybe not too good singing, and quietnesses that we used to have in days gone by when the saints were gathered together, it was so opposite to what he'd been used to.
Five years afterwards, before he passed away, he told me that that hour on Lord's Day morning was heaven on earth. He'd begin to realize what it was all about. When the disciples came together to break bread, what were they doing? They were carrying out the wish of the Lord Jesus, do this for a remembrance of me. I want you to notice, please, that do this for a remembrance of me, uh, has in mind the object for which we are gathered together.
And the object for which we are gathered together is to remember him. Some saints think that when the saints come together, they should come together simply to pray. But when you pray, you're not remembering him, you're remembering your needs. Again, others say, well, when you come together, you come together in order that you might praise the Lord, anything from the sunshine to the rain, praise the Lord for all his bounty. That's remembering your blessings, but it is not remembering him. If I were in Ireland, it would be true that when the saints of God come together, they always thank the Lord from saving them from hell.
It's a great subject in Ireland. When they come together and they do that, that's remembering they've been saved from hell, that's not remembering him. You might go to an English assembly, and you might find them there pre- praising the Lord for what they've been made to be in Christ. Prodigals return, prodigals come to the Father's table, you know, what we have been made through trusting Christ. But that's not remembering him. That's remembering what we have been made through trusting Christ. Now I am going to step on your corner. Your New Testament does not say we come together to remember the Lord's death. What does it say?
When we come together and break bread, we show the Lord's death. We declare the Lord's death. But when we come together to break bread, we remember not an event, but a person. You got that? Maybe you haven't heard that one before. You come together not to remember an event, but a person. The person is greater than the event. You cannot remember the person without remembering the event, but you are not confined to the event when you come together to remember the Lord Jesus.
So you don't remember your needs, nor your blessings, nor where you've been saved from, nor what you've been saved to, nor an event, but a person. So that when we come together as members of an assembly, we are gathered just simply with bread and with wine, and we are led by the Spirit of God in our expressions of worship as we gather together, let us get it, get it clear in our minds that we come together to remember him, the person of Christ, the subject of our gathering together.
So we come together to break bread. We come together to remember the Lord Jesus. So to notice this, and I want to write this upon the minds of the younger brethren, that when we come together, it is essential that we recognize that we gather together as priests, though we are priests every day of the week, and even when we do kind deeds or when we preach the gospel, we are acting in a priestly way. But I suppose the main function of the priesthood was ministering to God, and the main function of our holy priesthood is ministering to God.
And while we can minister to God on other occasions, the ideal place where for the saints to minister to God corporately is when we gather together to break bread. We are all priests. Men are priests, women are priests, young believers are priests, old believers are priests, all are holy priesthood unto God. There are restrictions in the New Testament study, and our sisters know perfectly well that they do not take aud- part audibly, though I trust, my dear sisters, that from the beginning of the meeting to the end, your hearts are indicted a good matter, and in your priestly function, there is arising silently from your hearts a grand appreciation of Christ.
See, young folk, to take that in. We used to reckon that a morning meeting took its character from the godly sisters. Who would, during the morning meeting, be so occupied with the person of Christ that there was a fragrance going up silently. I wonder what you young sisters are doing today in the morning meeting. Hm? Remember one of the Goodmans taking a Sunday school class, a Bible class on one occasion, and asking the young sisters what they did in the silent moments of the Lord's Day morning meeting. One said, I pray for my friends. Other one said, I pray for missionaries.
The other one was more honest. She said she thought about just anything. Hm? What do you do? The character of our morning meeting could be greatly improved, my dear. If you took up your priestliness, mused entirely upon the loveliness of Christ, it would lift the meeting. The volume of worship would be greatly increased if sisters were all occupied with the person of Christ. How about you, men? Far too many men in, in Vancouver playing sisters. You got what I mean?
Far too many men sitting on their seats, and they've been doing it, some of them, for forty years. They've never given out a hymn yet. They've never even thanked the Lord for saving them. That's for taking part in the prayer meeting or taking part in worship on Lord's Day morning, they wouldn't think of it. My dear brother, stop playing the woman and play the man. Men folk must be exercised before God as to leading the saints in worship on Lord's Day morning. If you don't, can I tell you what happens?
If you don't, the pauses get longer. The meeting becomes more characterized by poverty. And then folks start giving out hymns to fill the gaps. And you'll get in some places as many as five brethren getting up and reading different scripture. And the carnal element who want to change things say, that's a ministry of scraps. And the next thing they do is they say, we think we ought to appoint somebody to give an address so we get not scraps, but good ministry.
And they'll go as far as to say, you'll have the ministry first and tack the breaking of bread on the end. If you say that's wrong, that is wrong, but what leads to it? What's the cause of it? Where did some folks in America arrive at that idea and still call themselves an assembly? How did they get there? Because men fail to exercise their priestly ministry. Father, I want you young men to shape yourselves, and shape yourselves well. Realize that it is your responsibility, when the saints of God gather together, to be able to get up and, however feebly, express to God your appreciation of Christ.
And if you don't, you'll be partially at least responsible for the breakdown of things that will sure to come. So that, I know I'm rubbing it in, but I made up my mind I was going to rub it in. All over Britain and Ireland, the States and in Canada, brethren failing to rise to their responsibility to lead the saints in worship. It is essential, if things are going to go on in a scriptural way, that we should get to know Christ in a better way. We should learn more of him from the Word of God, and we should be able to so present Christ to God that it will bring him pleasure.
How long have we relegated the four gospels to a textbook for preachers? Or a textbook for Sunday school teachers? And fail to realize that the four gospels were ministry to the saints in the first century. And they were ministry to the saints about Christ. That's what they were written for. You and I should turn to our four gospels, not for preaching matter, that is gospel preaching matter, but to learn Christ, so that when we gather together, we have Christ to offer to God.
It's good to hear brethren giving out hymns, yes? It's good when a brother can rise and read a passage in keeping about the person of Christ. But can I tell you those two things are comparatively easy and can be done without exercise. And what we are lacking in the assemblies of God's people today is men that can worship. Men that can take God's people right into the sanctuary as they talk about Christ. And I tell you, those men amongst our companies are very few in our day.
Oh, you young folks, of course, think us old men are not with it. But I have been in meetings fifty-odd odd years ago when all the saints have been weeping. And the atmosphere of the presence of God, you could feel it. Dear men between their sobs have been moving the saints about the preciousness of Christ. You don't know what that's like today. But then men knew Christ, and they knew about his lovely character, and they knew about the wonder of his death, and they could move the companies of the saints as they talked about Christ.
That's what you come together for. But said Paul in writing to the Corinthians, as often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup, ye do announce the Lord's death till he come. You do preach the Lord's death. It is a public declaration that we make by taking bread and wine. We publicly declare. What do we declare? The passage says we declare the Lord's death.
We remember the person. By bread and wine separate from each other, we declare the Lord has died. The hymn says, no gospel like this feast. While the Lord's Supper isn't a feast, yet that hymn in the rest is true, that the Lord's Supper is a gospel preaching. It is a declaration of the Lord's death. When we came together in this hall this morning, our very presence here and taking of bread and wine in obedience to the Lord, we said to each other, the Lord has died.
All over your country, companies of saints gather together in the same way. And as members outside, worldlings, saw the saints of God leaving their homes, and I trust they know where you go to, knowing that you go to remember the Lord Jesus, they know it's about bread and wine. They know it's indicative of the death of the Lord Jesus, so you declare to the unsaved, the Lord has died. I go again to my New Testament, and I remember that Christians in their lives seeking to climb the heights of spirituality, both individually and corporately, that evil spirits are interested in deterring them from a full enjoyment of divine things.
So evil spirits, watch us as we gather together to take bread and wine. We declare, shall I say, to men, saints and sinners. We declare to demons. Then, as our sisters sit with their heads covered, it's because of the angels, which means to say the angels are watching when simple believers come together and they break bread. And we declare to angels who are looking on that the Lord has died.
What a gathering is this? Hm? Never miss it, my dear brother. Never miss it, my dear sister. It is an important center, this gathering, and we do something that is so extremely important. We declare to saints and sinners, demons and angels, one colossal fact. The Lord has died. We say sometimes, the devil trembles when he sees the weakest saint upon his knees.
Can you tell me what the devil does? When thousands of saints this morning took bread and wine and declared to saints and sinners, angels, demons, and to the devil and to the hosts of heaven, one colossal fact, the Lord has died. We, as it were, toll the devil's doom. Every time we break bread, we declare the Lord has died. You say in our assembly this morning, we were just a handful of simple, ordinary folk that don't matter one scrap whether we're alive or dead.
As far as this world's concerned, we're of no importance at all. My dear brother, my dear sister, by simply taking bread and wine this morning, you touched the extremities of the universe of God, and you made visible and invisible beings tremble. For we declare, we proclaim, we preach, the Lord has died, and we do it till he comes. Now they'll look lightly upon that, gentlemen.
Not good enough for the world. They must beautify it, ornament it, change it, alter it, but just simple folk with ordinary bread and wine, and no arrangements, and no ritual, just as simple as when the Lord Jesus instituted the supper. That very simple thing is more important than any human function, for we touch angels, demons, saints, and sinners by the most trumpet-like, alarming sound that the world could ever hear.
The Lord has died. Oh God, we bow in thy presence. We thank thee that in thy mercy, thou hast shown to simple folks like ourselves from thy word, just the simple way in which the Lord Jesus arranged for his people to gather together to break bread. No special bread, no special wine, no exciting ceremony, but just eating bread and drinking wine.
And we thank thee that when the saints gather together in such a way, that the heart of Christ is refreshed, and the God of heaven is worshipped. We thank thee, O God, for the Lord's Supper, because it feeds God. He enjoys the saints meditating upon the person and work of the Lord Jesus. Thank you, O God, for the far-reaching effects of the gathering together of the saints to remember the Lord Jesus. How saints are refreshed, how sinners are warned, how angels rejoice, and demons tremble when simple saints just declare by breaking bread, the Lord has died.
Help us, we pray, to value such a gathering, to be present on every occasion possible. Help the men folk particularly, we pray, to rise to the height of their calling, to occupy their minds with Christ, for thou has said every priest must have somewhat to offer, so that as we gather together, help us, O God, with exercised souls to so present Christ to them, that thy presence might be filled from our thanksgiving with a fragrance of Christ that shall rejoice thy heart and bring thee pleasure.
So we thank thee for this time together. Pray thee now to bless us as we separate and return to our respective assemblies. In the gospel, O God, grant thy blessing, we pray, in the preaching of the saving message of Christ, that sinners might be brought to know him. So bless us, we pray, in his lovely name.