Ordinances are divine commands instituted by the Lord, practiced by the early church, and taught in the epistles, serving as testimonies to the world. Baptism, a burial with Christ, signifies death to the old life and is for believers only, not infants, and is not a sacrament or a door into the church but a public confession of faith. The Lord's Supper, instituted during Passover, is a remembrance of Christ's sacrifice, to be observed regularly on the first day of the week as an act of giving to the Lord, not merely receiving from him. True worship, expressed through these ordinances, is about appreciating Christ's worthiness and is a response of love and gratitude, not a sensual experience or a mechanical ritual.
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I'm very penitent and apologize for the way I talked about having so little time to cover the subject last week. It's very unbecoming. You will admit it worked, though. First Corinthians chapter eleven. First Corinthians, chapter eleven, verse one.
Followers of me, even as I also am of Christ, now it is very unreasonable for any man to demand other men follow us. is one of the most conceited things that we as human beings are capable of doing, setting ourselves up to be leaders and demanding that other people follow us. And yet every false doctrine is predicated on this one premise. You couldn't have a religion, a false church, unless you demanded absolute obedience.
You must demand that people park their brains outside, that they follow the leader. And yet Christianity never makes any such demand, except obedience to our Blessed Lord Jesus himself. He is the head of the church and there is no other. And even the great Apostle Paul, who was the Apostle specially chosen, to lead the Gentiles into the church, the special one chosen to give us the revelation of the church, and the one through whom God gave us at least half of the New Testament books.
He said, Be you followers of me to the extent that I follow the Lord Jesus. Now, if you don't remember that, it'll save you an awful lot of trouble. Whenever anyone suggests that you do a certain thing, go back to the Word of God and see if this is true. I carried my Bible one night to a meeting. I was invited to attend this meeting. I carried my Bible there, and when I walked in with my Bible, everybody stared at me, including the preacher. I was there as a guest. one of his people who attended there regularly had asked me to go.
And when he got up to speak, he said, glaring at me, there are some people who can't seem to trust the minister to give what is right. They have to check you up with their own Bibles. Brother, I thought about that high, till I remembered. But that put me in the same company with the Bereans. According to the Acts, the Apostle Paul was the one who went to Thessalonica, and he was the one who went to Berea. And he said, the Bereans are more noble than those of Thessalonica, or rather the recorder said.
The Bereans are more noble than those of Thessalonica, because they heard the word with readiness of mine and search the scriptures daily whether those things were sold. And if you shut your eyes and open your mouth, you'll have to get anything in it. And that goes just as much from listening to me as does from any other human being. God expects you to be discerning. Again, the apostle wrote, I speak as unto wise men, judge ye what I say. And if any man doesn't lead you according to the book, don't follow him.
I think this is a good preamble to what he has to say in the next verse. Now, I praise you, brethren, that you remember me in all things, and keep the ordinances as I delivered them to you. He doesn't say, as I made them up, or as I thought they seemed good. He doesn't say, I praise you, that you listened to what I had to say and followed my advice. He said, I'm thankful that you kept the ordinances which I delivered to you.
Now, in order to establish that what we're talking about, look at verse twenty-three, for I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you. Paul didn't get the ordinances. out of his own astute background, his own learning. He got them from the Lord. In writing to the Galatians, he says, I didn't get the gospel from man. I got it directly from the Lord. And in writing to the Corinthians, he says, I didn't get the revelation of the church from man. I got it directly from the Lord. And in writing to these people here, he says, I didn't get the ordinances from man, I got them directly from the Lord.
I received with the Lord that which I also delivered unto you, and then he proceeds to give them the ordinance of the Lord's Supper. Now since it has to be received of the Lord, and since it is kept by those who heard it from the apostles, we have here I think what we can call a scriptural three-fold text. First of all, an ordinance must be instituted by the Lord Himself. Second, it must be practiced by the early church. If this is a Johnny come lately, you have no reason to give it any particular heed at all. And third, it is something which must be taught in the epistles.
Because I believe, and I think you believe, that this Bible is complete. God gave us in this book all that we need for the twentieth century as well as for the first century. So the ordinances then are those which will pass this threefold test, taught by the Lord Jesus, practiced in the early church, this would be in the record of the Acts, and taught in the epistles as a doctrine in the writings of our New Testament. Every church has its own idea about how many ordinances there are, and this is a free country.
I have no quarrel with any church at all. The Roman Catholic Church now has seven. It was not always so. They've added these from time to time. a table of chronology at home, which I find most interesting, which tells when the Roman Catholic Church added these various things, made these various changes, issued these what are called bulls, communicates from the Pope, and these things went into effect at certain times. And then, of course, this table also shows when certain things went out of effect.
And you have to bring that up to date now. There are several things that have been abandoned by that church of late. Things which were considered very important, very serious, for centuries are now no longer by now. Now, this is perfectly all right. They have a right to do that. They'll have to answer to God for how they've handled His Word, but they have a perfect right to have as many ordinances as the like. There are some God-fearing people, real believers, who have added only one to the two which are given in the New Testament, and they have made an ordinance of foot-washing.
And I highly honor my brethren who do this because at least they do have a thus saith the Lord for it. The Lord himself did say that as I have washed your feet, you ought to wash one another's feet. I submit that as a proof that this was not intended to be practiced as an ordinance, these facts. One, the Lord Jesus said, you don't know what I'm doing when they saw him washing their feet, which of course means that it has a significance above and beyond the actual practice. Two, The Lord Jesus never specified any time at which this was to be done, as he did with baptism and with the Lord's supper.
Three, it was never practiced, according to the record of the early church, by any of the disciples after that time, nor was it taught by any of the eleven who were present there. It does not occur in any of the New Testament writings. So while it does have its place, it does have its value, it certainly was an act of humility and it has great spiritual significance to us, I don't believe that it passes the test for a true ordinance. I believe that there are two ordinances and I want to try to cover those.
It will have to be brief because either one of these should take a whole morning. I would like to say that the ordinances were given for a special purpose, and the Lord tells us what that purpose is. They were to be testimonies to those about us. Baptism is a witness, a testimony. I'll try to show you what that testimony is. The Lord's Supper is also a testimony. I shall try to establish what that testimony is. First of all, baptism.
I'd like to read two or three things to you. I would like to establish two or three points, and I'll have to do it very briefly. First of all, turn to the book of the Acts, chapter two. Then verse forty-one. The church began on the day of Pentecost and the second of the Acts. Three thousand people got saved that day. Verse forty-one. Then they that gladly received His word were baptized. Notice the order.
First you receive His word and then you receive baptism. And the same day they were added unto them as in italics, they were added together, actually, about three thousand souls. And they continued steadfastly in the Apostles' doctrine and fellowship and in breaking of bread and in prayers. I point out to you that baptism did not add them together, because this was mentioned as a separate thing. I point out to you that baptism was not the end of the line, but the beginning of the line, because they continued then in the Apostles' doctrine, the study of the Word of God, and in fellowship, and in breaking of bread, that's the Lord's Supper, and in prayers.
And then he goes on to tell how liberal they were in their giving. Acts chapter eight. Verse twenty nine, Then the Spirit said unto Philip, Go near and join thyself to this chariot. And Philip ran thither to him and heard him, that is the Ethiopian who was the treasurer under Candace, queen of the Ethiopians.
He said to him, He went near to him and heard him read the prophet Isaiah and said, Understandest thou what thou readest? And he said, How can I accept some man should guide me? And he desired Philip that he would come up and sit with him. The place of the scripture which he read was this, he was led as a sheep to the slaughter and like a lamb done before his shearer, so open he not his mouth. In his humiliation his judgment was taken away and who shall declare his generation for his life is taken from the earth? The eunuch answered Philip and said, I pray thee, of whom speaketh the prophet this, of himself or of some other man.
Then Philip opened his mouth and began the same scripture and preached unto him Jesus. Not baptism, but Jesus. And as they went on their way, they came to a certain water, and the eunuch said, See, here is water. What do hinder me to be baptized? Now, of course, if they were going to sprinkle him, he could use these canteens. They came to a water, an oasis, in the wilderness. And Philip said, if thou believeest with all thine heart, thou mayest. Notice that. Now I realize that some of the revised versions omit that verse, but I believe without real scholarly background.
And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. And he commanded the chariot to stand still. And they went down both into the water. Both Philip and the eunuch, and he baptized him. When they were come up out of the water, the spirit of the Lord caught away Philip, and the eunuch saw him no more, and he went on his way rejoicing. And in chapter ten, the gospel was carried to Gentiles. in the presence of some Jewish believer so that they might understand that the gospel really was being sent out now to the Gentiles.
And he preached the gospel to them, concluding with the words in verse forty-three to him, to Christ, give all the prophets witness that through his name whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission of sins while peter yet spake these words the holy ghost fell on all them which heard the word and they of the circumcision which believed were astonished as many as came with peter notice the presence of the jews whenever you have the speaking in tongues because it was to the jews that this sign was given caused that on the Gentiles also was poured out the gift of the Holy Ghost, for they heard them speak with tongues and magnify God.
Then answered Peter, Can any man forbid water that these should not be baptized, which have received the Holy Ghost, as well as we? And he commanded them to be baptized in the name of the Lord. Then prayed they in to tarry certain days. I point out to you from this that baptism is only for believers. Philip was very careful to find out if the treasure of Ethiopia had really received the Lord Jesus. He preached Jesus to him. He wanted to be sure that he had trusted the Lord Jesus, and he asked for a statement of his faith in the Lord Jesus.
And then, and not until then, was he willing to baptize him. It was because these Gentiles in Chapter Ten showed that they had really believed the word. Spirit of God had sealed this. And because they were genuinely born again, then Peter said, who can hinder these people from being baptized? They have a right to be baptized. And he commanded, the command was not to the believers, but to the, that is not to the new believers, but to the older believers who were standing by. He commanded them to see that the job was done. And they did. I'd like to say a few things about baptism, and I have to rush through them.
I apologize for this, but I want to just make these statements, and if you question them, I shall be glad to back them up. I want to make seven comparative statements, one a negative and one a positive. One, baptism is not a sacrament. It is an ordinance. An ordinance is something which is given from God for us to do. A sacrament is a soldier's oath. When a man joined the Roman army, he took the sacrament.
That was the word for it. Later on, they came to transfer this to certain things which were done by Christians, totally without any basis. In the sacrament, a soldier swears allegiance and promises faithfully upon pain of death that he will be true to his emperor. Nobody does this in baptisms. They do. They're not intelligent Christians. Because an intelligent Christian, I mean spiritually intelligent, knows very well that he can't promise anything because he couldn't deliver it. I might as well promise you the moon. as to promise that I am going to be faithful to God from this point on.
We just don't have. In baptism we are not promising anything. In baptism we are not taking a sacrament. In baptism we are not saying anything about what we're going to do. We are saying what has been done. Now in the sixth chapter of Romans, we know what that is. In Romans chapter six, he says, You are buried with Him by baptism unto death. The significance of baptism is buried. When a person dies, that person has to be buried.
It's a very sad thing when we have to make arrangements for the burial of the bodies of our loved ones. What we accept it is inevitable. There is no other way around it. Death means burial. And when you receive Christ as your Savior, that was the end of you, so far as a man or woman of this world is concerned. When you receive Christ, you died to this world. You died to the old life. You began a new life. But that's beside the point. Baptism doesn't say I'm going to live a new life.
Baptism says I've come to the end of the old life. And because I have died with Christ, I wish to be buried with Christ. That's why it's absolutely impossible to be scripturally baptized by either sprinkling or pouring. In fact, the matter until you come to the year of three-twenty-five AD, you have absolutely no record and we have many, many writings of the first three or four centuries, you know. I have a large book at home. It's just filled with letters that are written back and forth in the end of the first century and through the second and the third and the fourth centuries.
We have a great deal of correspondence carried down to us and not once to ever read of anybody being sprinkled or water being poured on their heads until When Constantine, whom we have reason to question, ever was a real believer at all, said so many Christians are now, so many people are now becoming Christians. What actually was happening was this. Up until that time, ten Roman emperors, one after another, beginning with Nero, and then he was Diocletian. Ten of these rascals, one after another, had enforced the law that it is wrong to be a Christian, and he killed everybody he could.
Literally thousands, millions of early-day Christians gave up their lives rather than deny the Lord Jesus Christ. And then Constantine, who was a very clever man, decided, here's a chance to do something different and make a big success of it. And he claims that he saw some kind of a vision with the Latin words underneath it, a vision of a cross and the Latin insignia in Huxignovins. By this sign, Conquer. So he decided he'd be a Christian. Significantly, he never got baptized himself until he thought he was dying.
Which gives you a pretty good idea how deep his convictions were. But anyway, he said, now, since it's a good thing to be a Christian, I make a law that everybody be a Christian. And I hereby appoint the leading men in the church to be the leading men in my kingdom. So everybody rushes to be a Christian. Quote, unquote. It wasn't real, of course. Where the devil failed in his persecution, he succeeded wonderfully well in his patronage. By getting Christianity to become a popular thing, he swamped the church.
That was the beginning of the great world church, or worldly church, that we have today. So Constantine said, you can't possibly baptize all these people. I'll show you how to do it. And he took a basin of water and walked out on the balcony. and said, I've baptized all of you in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. And if anybody got a drop of water on him, he felt he was baptized. That's where it originated. And if you don't think so, you prove to me differently. I've thrown that challenge out a lot of times in the last fifty years, and not one's ever been able to refuse it.
That's a matter of history. As I said, it's a free country. If you want to be sprinkled, you go right ahead and do it. But don't call it baptism, if you're talking about Bible baptism. Dairy. Dairy. Without sight. Cover it up. Dairy. If that's what it means, let's stick to it. That isn't what it means, and you have to tell me what. It isn't a second. It is an ordinance. It is not a birth. It is a burial. It is not for infants.
Not once in all the New Testament. Do you ever read of any infant being baptized? It says they that received his word were baptized. Any child who is old enough to receive his word is old enough to be baptized. Parents have to be very careful about this. Don't put words into your child's mouth. Don't be in a hurry. to get him marked with baptism. This, of course, too, is connected with Roman Catholicism and the ritualistic churches which came out of Rome. They have made baptism to be a means of salvation. They have said, if your baby is not baptized and it dies, it'll be consigned to limbo.
And that's one of the most devilish things ever invented. That makes God out to be a monster. I couldn't worship a God who believed and who taught a thing like that. Could you believe that God would allow an innocent baby to be damned to hell for all eternity because its parents failed to do something to it? This is wicked. And to say that a child becomes, and this is what many of the catechisms say, you can find it, and I can show it to you in four different churches that I know of, they say that in my baptism I became a child of God, A member of the church and an inheritor of the kingdom.
And there isn't any truth to any one of the three statements. What you did do as a baby when you have the water sprinkled on you was to get scared silly. And you held your head off. That's what actually happened. The rest of them are pure imagination. I don't say these things to hurt anybody's feelings. They asked me to preach on the truths of the church. This is what the Bible teaches. I have no quarrel with you. If you believe something else, please don't have any quarrel with me because I'm giving what the Bible says. If you think that any baby in the Bible was ever baptized, you try to find it. I know that it does say that the household of Onesiferous was all baptized, but it also says that the household of Onesiferous all devoted themselves to the care of their fellow Christians.
They were old enough to help their fellow Christians, or certainly were old enough to be baptized. I know that the Bible does say that Lydia's household was all baptized, but I also know that Lydia was a long way from where she lived and that she was a merchant carrying on a business. She had a group of servants around her. And if she had any babies in the house, you wonder why she wasn't back where she belonged, taken care of them. There's nothing at all to indicate that a merchant woman living thousands of miles from her place of birth, from her home, would have any tiny babies in her household. There's nothing in the Scripture at all to indicate it.
It is not, for instance, it is for believers. Now, this may start with some of you, but baptism is not following the example of the Lord Jesus. Many people say, well, I want to be baptized and follow His example. Now the Lord Jesus was not baptized with believers' baptism. He was baptized with John's baptism. And according to the nineteenth chapter of Acts, people who were baptized with John's baptism got baptized over again when they heard the gospel, which shows you that John's baptism has nothing to do with our confession of faith as believers. Read it for yourself when you have time. What was John's baptism?
John's baptism was an acknowledgement. solely for Jews. Nobody but a Jew is permitted to be baptized with the baptism of John. The baptism of John was an acknowledgement by Jews that we are wrong in our attitude toward God, and we believe that the Messiah is coming. And we take our place in the Jordan, which speaks of death. We take our place as those who deserve to die, signifying that we want the Messiah to come. We're ready to accept him. You can see how the place that is now. because the Lord Jesus has already come and has finished the work. So the Lord Jesus was never baptized as a Christian. In fact, the church did not begin until after the Lord Jesus went home to heaven.
It might help you to remember that there are seven kinds of baptism in the Bible and no two are to be confused, one with another. For instance, in the third chapter of Matthew, we're told about the Lord baptizing with the Holy Ghost and with fire. Now the baptism of the Holy Spirit takes place when we receive Christ as our Savior. The Holy Spirit puts us into the church. The baptism of fire, on the other hand, will only take place for unbelievers and is called the Lake of Fire in another place and will take place at the end of the age. So you see, if you confuse those, you've got real problems. After the Lord Jesus was baptized with John's baptism, he said, I have a baptism.
to be baptized with and I'm limited till it takes place. He'd already been baptized and he said, I'm looking forward to another baptism. And then he went on to explain it was the suffering of Calvary. Believers' baptism then is the order for our day. We're not following Jesus' example. We are obeying Jesus' command. It's not his example. It's his command. Now, the next thing I'd like to point out to you is that baptism is not the door into the church. In fact, the matter is it isn't the door into anything.
Baptism doesn't put you in the family of God. We know that because there was a man who was baptized and the Apostle Peter said to him, you're still in the bond of iniquity and the goal of bitterness. And you better pray God that he doesn't bring judgment on you. He's been baptized all right. He was a wet sinner. Never been born again at all. On the other hand, you have a man saved on the cross. And the Lord plainly told him, This day shall thou be with me in paradise, and he never got baptized. So you can see that baptism doesn't make a man a child of God.
Neither does it put him in the church. It is not the door into the church. Either the invisible church, which is the body of Christ, of which I have just been speaking, nor the visible church with the local testimony. You could not come into fellowship in this assembly by being baptized. You are not baptized into the local church or into the fellowship of believers. Now, there are many churches into which you can be baptized. And you become a member of that organization by the act of baptism. This is not taught in the Bible. It is a confession of your faith in Christ.
It is a way of showing people that you have received the Lord Jesus. It's sort of like the soldier putting on his uniform. He's already a soldier. From the moment that he was sworn in, he was a soldier. But other people couldn't tell it until he put on his uniform. And some of you have been secret soldiers for quite a while. It's about time you got that uniform on. Come out in the open with it. Tell people who you are. Don't be afraid to confess him as your Savior. There's one more thing I just want to touch on here. If you have been bothered by this, you'll understand me.
If you don't, don't worry about it. There is a teaching extent today that baptism is connected with a Jewish dispensation and is not for believers. Quite a few Christian people right here in this town who have rejected baptism totally. They say the whole thing belongs back in the former dispensation. And in order to prove that, this is what they do. They say that on the day of Pentecost, the second chapter of the Acts, that a Jewish church was formed and that they should be baptized. But that at the end of the Acts, they're not sure just exactly where, the new church was formed and they are not told to be baptized.
Now, if this is true, I can show you the fallacy of it by just asking two or three questions. If this is true, which church did the Lord Jesus mean with his church? For he said, Upon this church, I will build my church. Upon this rock, I will build my church. And in the second of Acts, it plainly says the Lord added to the church, such as were being saved. If that's the Lord's church, then whose is this other one? If that is not the Lord's church, then whose is it? So you've got a dilemma that I've never heard any of and able to squirm out of. See, the trouble with cutting the scriptures to fit your own patterns It's sort of like when you're building a house.
When you build that house, you better build it square when you're putting the foundation in, square and level. When you put the foundation in, because if you get that thing off a little bit, two inches shorter on one side than on the other, everything you cut from then on in that house is going to have to be cut to clip that error that you made in the foundation. And this is just what's happening in Christendom today. They go back to say, well, our founder believed so-and-so, and so we've got to cut everything to fit that. And you really get it chopped up before you do. Now, baptism is not for the Jewish dispensation. The Lord Jesus plainly said in the twenty-eighth chapter of Matthew, Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
And lo, I am with you. How long? Even under the end of the age. So the orders that were given to us, the commission was given to us, is under the end of the age. Don't let anybody sidetrack you from that. I don't think I need to say any more about it. I'll be glad to answer questions privately if you have some dilemma here, and I'm sure it's very easy to have. In the library of the Union Theological Seminary in New York, which I'm not recommending, merely saying, in their library, there is a collection, a very curious collection, of five hundred volumes on baptism, no two of which agree with each other.
It gives you an idea of the confusion there is in the world today. Why? Because people didn't follow the pattern that the Apostle Paul said the Corinthians were following. He said, I praise you, brethren, because you have kept the ordinances as I delivered them unto you. And if Christians today would go back and get what the Lord delivered to Paul, all of this confusion could be ironed out in a moment. I know it's embarrassing. It entails an acknowledgement that I've been wrong. I baptized a man who had been a Christian for forty years. He not only had been a Christian for forty years, but he'd been a preacher for twenty years.
He not only had been a preacher for twenty years, but he'd been an editor of a magazine purported to be teaching Christian doctrine for eighteen of those years. Imagine the embarrassment of that man. when he had to walk up to the front and say, I have never been scripturally baptized. Of course it's embarrassing, but you want to be embarrassed now or then. You're going to have to meet your Lord one of these days. What are you going to tell him? When you appear before the Lord in all his holy angels, you want to be able to say, Lord, I've tried to keep the ordinances as you deliver them.
to the Apostle. First Corinthians chapter eleven again. Verse twenty-three, for I have received of the Lord that which I also delivered unto you that the Lord Jesus the same night in which you was betrayed took bread. Bread. Don't make anything else out of it. bread and when he had given thanks he break it and said take eat this is my body well but you say it changed into his body all right what did he hand it to him with did he have two bodies now let's face up to this thing sensibly I do not believe in transubstantiation the doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church and I do not believe in consubstantiation the doctrine of the Lutheran Church, which is shared by some of the other ritualistic churches, because the Bible doesn't teach it, and because it simply can't be squared with human reasoning.
God didn't ask you to park your brains outside. If the Lord wanted you to believe that this bread had actually become his body, he would have explained how. Here he was standing before them, still in the body, and this was another body beside this body. because he was handing the bread to them. If that body is actually, literally, physically, his body, think of the size of his body in the last two thousand years. Think of the enormous mound of bread and wafers and crackers and all the rest of it.
that has accumulated in the past two thousand years what did he mean when he said this is my body exactly the same thing when he said i am the door when he said i am the door did somebody say all right lord where's the door knob of course not where are the hinges of course not you're pretty thick for a door this is ridiculous And the Lord said, I am a door. Anybody with an ounce of brains knew that he meant I am the way in. If you want in, you'll have to come in through me.
Anybody knew that's what he meant. Because he went on to say, he that enters in by the door. You've got to come in by the door. By me, if any man enter in, he shall be saved. He shall go in and out and find pasture. Oh, the Lord said many wonderful things about himself. And when he gave them bread, he was merely helping them to understand that by this ordinance you are going to be reminded. I want you to get that word reminded. Remember. That's the key word to this ordinance. Take heed this of 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 stopped saying this cup is the New Testament in my blood this do ye as often as you drink it in remembrance of me for as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup ye do show not show forth you show you show to each other you show to yourselves the Lord's death till he come I think in order to understand the Lord's Supper We need to remember the background and the Old Testament background of the Passover. The Jews were delivered miraculously out of Egypt in the Old Testament.
And at that time, God asked them to take the Passover. And then he asked them to do it annually thereafter in remembrance of this event. The Lord knew that these people had this background. So he deliberately chose the time when they were having the Passover, which then became the last Passover, because that's all history now. We've left that. This is what the nation of Israel did. This is what you used to do as a Jew. You took this Passover, now I'm going to give you something new. And he gave them the Lord's Supper. You'll find the institution of the Lord's Supper recorded in all three of the Synoptic Gospels.
John doesn't record it because John is talking about an entirely different subject. He's not giving us the humanity of the Lord Jesus. The Passover then was given as a means of remembrance for the children of Israel of their deliverance out of Egypt. The Lord's Supper is given as a remembrance of our deliverance from the far greater bondage The Jews were told specifically when they were to keep that Passover. The Lord set the date, the month, the day, and said that it was to be annually. Now God has a right to say how he wants us to remember it.
He also has a right to say when he wants us to remember it. I submit the same thing is true of the New Testament. And in Acts twenty and verse seven we read On the first day of the week, the disciples came together to break bread. We don't have a way of expressing things as freely in the English as we do in the language in which our New Testament was given, which was the Koine Greek, the common Greek of that day. It's not a living language today. It still retains its original meaning. There is a modern Greek language today, which is very beautiful.
But the language of the New Testament jailed at that point. God stopped the language right there so that we would always know exactly what he said to us and what he meant. And the word given to us here for remembering the Lord, where it says, on the first day of the week, the disciples came together to break bread. The verb form. is a form which means habitually and could well be translated on the first day of the week, the disciples habitually came together to break bread.
They did this as a regular occurrence. Now, when the Lord Jesus rose from the dead, he was with the disciples on the first day of the week. Not the Sabbath. The Sabbath has never been changed, incidentally. The Sabbath is still Saturday. And if I were a Jew, I certainly would keep the Sabbath or try to. But I'm not a Jew. I have no connection whatever with it, any more than I have with any of the rest of the Jewish ordinances, and neither have you. On the Sabbath the Lord Jesus was in the tomb. On the first day of the week he rose again from the dead. On the first day of the week the Lord Jesus appeared to his own.
And exactly a week later, on the next first day of the week, he appeared to them again. Apparently he intended for them to meet him every first day of the week, because he was there every first day of the week. The Holy Spirit came on the first day of the week, and so the church was born on the first day of the week, not on the Sabbath at all. And when the book of the Revelation was given, in the first chapter of the Revelation, we're told, that John was in the spirit on the Lord's day, which of course is the first day of the week. And then the Lord gave to him the wonderful revelations which were intended for the church. Now it's very evident that the early church came together on the first day of the week to break bread.
In First Corinthians chapter sixteen, the Lord tells us something else is to happen on the first day of the week. Verse one of chapter sixteen of first Corinthians now concerning the collection for the saints as I have given order to the churches of Galatia even so do ye upon the first day of the week let every one of you lay by him in store as God has prospered him if there be no gatherings when I come I have a friend he's a good friend of mine he doesn't always think I'm a friend of his but I try to talk to him once in a while about his disobedience because he remembers the Lord once a month He thinks that's enough.
And I said to him, you know, I just don't know how you finance your church on one collection a month. He said, would you ever get the idea of only one collection a month? Well, I said, the collection was taken at the Lord's Supper, and you only have the Lord's Supper once a month. I said, man, we have a collection every meeting, sometimes two of them. I said, well, now, just a minute. What is the Lord's Supper for? And he began to kind of hedge, you know, because he knew I was going to trap him. Well, he admitted the Lord's Supper is for the Lord himself. Don't ever say, I don't get much out of the Lord's Supper. That's like saying, I don't think I'll come to your birthday party next year.
I didn't get much out of it this year. True selfishness. If you come to the Lord's Supper to get something out of it, you might as well stay home. But if you come to give the Lord Jesus something, you'll know the real joy of worship. There's nothing to be compared with it. We come to the Lord's Supper to give. It's the only meeting of the week that's unselfish. You came to this meeting to learn something. I hope you do. I came to try to teach what I have from the Word of God, and you came to listen. I hope you don't get done before I do. I just want you to get what I'm trying to show you from the Word of God. But listen to me, friends. The Lord's Supper is for Him.
And my friend was right when he said, well, we hold it for him. I said, okay, who's the collection for? And he had to admit the collection was for his own salary. There are some other things that have to be taken care of. But the main thing about the collection is he had to have his salary met. Well, I said, once a month is often enough for him. but every meeting and sometimes twice. Oh, he said, that's not fair. He said, all right, you figure out a fair way to state it and come back and talk to me again. He's never talked to me since about it.
There isn't any other way you can state it. The collection was at the same time of the Lord's Supper and only then. And if the Lord's people did what they were told to do, there'd be plenty for the Lord and there'd be plenty for His work. What do we have the Lord's Supper for to show His death? When I break that bread, I'm saying, Lord, I help to cause the pain and the suffering of Calvary. If I'm talking to someone here this morning who isn't a Christian, let me tell you something. Whether you know it or not, you had a part in the suffering and death of our Lord Jesus. If you'd been the only sinner on the face of God's green earth, he would have suffered and died on the cross to take your sins away.
And you ought to get down on your knees today and thank him and accept him. And when you do, you'll love him. And you'll be glad for this opportunity of just showing that you haven't forgotten. You don't do anything else, but come here and sit down with the Lord's people and take a piece of that bread when the time comes and take a sip of that cup when the opportunity is given to you. And in so doing, say, Lord Jesus, I remember what you suffered. And I thank you for it. His heart will be glad. That's what it's for. I know there's individual worship. There's a lot of going on all the time.
But collective worship is something which God expects from his people. And we do this. This is why we don't have the details in the Scripture. The way we do it here is just we have certain customs that we've tried to put together. For instance, we say we come here to praise and exalt the Lord. So naturally, a song is a way of doing this. And we're told that when the Lord had instituted the Lord's Supper after they sang a hymn, they went up. So we know that the singing of hymns and songs is suitable for the expression of our appreciation. We also know that it's wrong to have any man in charge because it says they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.
By the leading of the Holy Spirit, not by the leading of somebody up in front that tells you when to come in. Whenever you have the so-called Lord's Supper with a man in charge, and he's got it all outlined, he's got it down on a piece of paper, you've made no room for the Spirit of God at all. But when the Spirit of God is free to lead this man to give a hymn, or this man to give thanks, or this man to read a portion of Scripture, when you have that kind of liberty, you have the liberty of the Spirit of God. This is what we try to follow. But if you would come here on Sunday morning, for a succession of a dozen Sunday mornings. My guess is that you wouldn't find any two alike.
And if you did, then I would say that those of us who participated in the meeting would have to say with shame, we are just back in the rut. Whenever Christians get to where they do the same thing mechanically, rather than spontaneously, the heart overflowing to Christ, then we've just gotten back into the same kind of thing that has plagued God's people all the way along. Worship the Lord and do it collectively. Now, some people wonder why they don't have a lot of things in the worship, in the Lord's Supper, that would make it easier to worship.
For instance, they say, you could create a worshipful atmosphere for what? for the flesh, for the human soul. Not for the spirit. The spirit is not cognizant of surroundings. The spirit is the part of man by which we have contact with God. The soul is the part with which we have self-consciousness and the body is the part by which we have world consciousness. Now, anything that appeals to the five senses, Anything that appeals to the senses is purely sensual. The word comes from the same root.
And worship that is based upon a worshipful feeling. A man said to my father, well, the only reason I could say I'm a Christian is that he says I just get a thrill up and down my backbone every time I hear the choir sing. So I guess I must be a Christian. And my father said to him, do you get the same thing when you hear the brass band on Saturday night? Yes, he says, come to think of it, I do. He was an honest man. Well, he said, what's happening to you is purely soulical. It's human. We enjoy music. We enjoy beautiful sunset. We enjoy stained glass windows.
We enjoy the incense. It's the right kind. We enjoy... All of these things. Are we worshiping? No. A thousand times no. Has nothing to do with worship whatever. What is worship? The word worship, the Old English worship comes from the word worthship. The worthship of the Lord. Worship is simply talking about His worthiness, thinking about His worthiness, appreciating His worthiness. They translated the Bible into a language where they had no word for worship. And the missionary, always finding this difficulty when you try to translate the Scriptures, said, what am I going to do?
You can't have a Bible without the word worship because this is almost the heart of it. Man has withheld from God his worship and God desires his worship. What am I going to do? And one day he watched a Christian man's dog come up and sit in front of him. And then the man, the Christian man, turned to him and said in the native dialect, the nearest thing we'd have to translate in English, he said, isn't it wonderful the way he dogs on me? Because it was a verb related to the noun dog.
And the mission says, that's it. That's the word I'm looking for. Exactly what the dog does to his master. Shows that he appreciates him. Shows that he loves him. Hangs on his words. Wants to be close to him. This is exactly what a Christian feels toward the Lord Jesus Christ. The distance between the man and the dog is nothing compared to the distance between God and the man. but the man is invited to draw near to God. So they translated that dialect with the word to dog upon them.
How long has it been since you really worshipped? Or are you just a gimmick Christian? You just want God to give you this and give you that and give you the other thing. How many of you have asked the Lord Jesus what he'd like to have for Christmas? And you're working yourself to death, trying to see that everybody else is happy and satisfied. We call it his birthday. Very likely it isn't. We don't know when his birthday was. But we call it his birthday. How many of you have said, Lord Jesus, what can I do to please thee? That's worship. oh brothers and sisters I don't have time to say anymore I wish I did I wish I could I wish I could get across to you the importance of these ordinances by my baptism I said to my friends I belong to the Lord I'm dead to this world I'm alive to God and by the Lord's supper I try to say every first day of the week to my fellow Christians and to myself all I am I owe to my blessed Lord Jesus I'm His, and
He is worthy of all that we can bring. Let's pray. Our blessed Savior, we are ashamed to admit how selfish we are, how little we understand, how little we appreciate thy great love to us. And yet we thank thee that in thy wisdom thou hast given to thy people these two things which could help us so wonderfully to draw near to thyself. Now thyself has asked us to be baptized and in so doing to cut our former ties, to be separated from the old life and the old world, to take our stand with thee in resurrection ground.
to rise, to walk in newness of life, to take a stand before our friends and our neighbors. And in the Lord's Supper, thou hast given us the wonderful opportunity of returning a little to thee of the love and appreciation and gratitude that thou hast placed in our hearts by thy kindness to us. Lord, help us not to neglect, not to abuse, not to reject these two wonderful ordinances. Bless that, dear people. Lead them on for thyself.
Save any who are not yet saved. We pray, in the name of thy Son. Amen.