Well, as we prepare for the ordinance of the Lord's table, let's go to Matthew 26 this morning. It's been a long time since I just preached from the narrative where the Lord instituted His Supper, His table. And it always stirs me afresh to see how all of the Bible is one book about one glorious person and His one glorious purpose. The person is Jesus. The purpose is building His church for His glory.
And He will do that and do it perfectly. Look at Matthew chapter 26. Let's look at verses 26 through 30. While they were eating, Jesus took some bread, and after a blessing, He broke it and gave it to the disciples and said, Take, eat, this is my body. When He had taken a cup and given thanks, He gave it to them, saying, Drink from it, all of you. For this is the blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for forgiveness of sins. But I say to you, I will not drink of this fruit, of this vine, and from now on into that day when I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom.
After singing a hymn, He went out to the Mount of Olives. I've simply entitled this The First Lord's Supper. The First Lord's Supper.
Three simple words for this simple outline and simple message. There's a word of consummation here as the Lord is bringing the Jewish Passover feast meal to an end. There's a word of transformation as He transforms the Jewish Passover meal into the Lord's Table or the Lord's Supper, which we partake of here as His church. And then thirdly, there's a word of anticipation as we look forward to one more transformation. First, we have the Passover meal transformed into the Lord's Supper, and in the future we're going to have the Lord's Supper transformed into the marriage supper of the Lamb.
All of them linked together. Let's look at it together. First of all, the consummation. I use that word because that word denotes perfected or perfection or something that's come to a completion or maturity. So the Passover had its purposes in God's economy and in the progressive revelation of God's truth. It had its place, but now it's consumed, if you will. It's brought to an end as it is turned into the Lord's Supper. Verse 26 simply says, as they were eating. So we ask ourselves, so what were they eating? I don't mean the particular food. There are bitter herbs and things there, unleavened bread. But what they were eating was the Jewish Passover meal.
Matter of fact, just looking back for a moment briefly. Exodus 12, beginning in verse 1, as the Lord was bringing the final plague on Egypt so that the Egyptians would let loose or let go of their bondage on Israel. The text says that the Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, This month shall be the beginning of months for you.
It is to be the first month of the year to you. Speak to all of the congregation of Israel saying, On the tenth of this month, they are each one to take a lamb for themselves, according to the father's household, a lamb for each household. Your lamb shall be unblemished. It's a picture of Jesus.
A male, a year old. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats. And you should keep it until the fourteenth day of the same month. Then the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel is to kill it at twilight. Moreover, you should take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and on the lentil of the houses in which they eat it. So here we have this instruction from God. I'm bringing the last plague against Egypt so that they might let you go. You're to kill an unblemished lamb.
You're to take the blood of that lamb and you're to put some on the doorpost and some on the lentil of your house. And then in verse 12 of Exodus 12, for I will go through the land of Egypt on that night and I will strike down all the firstborn in the land of Egypt. Now notice he's striking down every firstborn because all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. All justly deserve the death angel to come to their house, Jew and Gentile.
He says, both man and beast, verse 12, and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments. I am the Lord. The blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you live. So here's the difference. You're not any different. The difference is the blood between you and the death angel.
If God were just and to bring his justice to bear on you, Israel, you would be judged with everyone else. The difference is the third party provision of the blood. That's what prevents the death angel from coming into your home. Verse 13 again, the blood shall be a sign for you on your houses where you live. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you. Thus the Passover meal commemorated this passing over the death angel on every Jewish household where the blood was applied.
And no plague will befall you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt. So they took some bread. The Passover meal was a meal that included unleavened bread.
Having unleavened bread is significant. Leaven was a symbol of sin or evil, ungodliness, worldliness. And I think one of the things the Lord wanted to get across to them was, I'm bringing you out of the world, represented by Egypt. I'm bringing you out of sin and wickedness, represented by Egypt. And I'm bringing you to a holy and pure communion with myself.
But not just leaving Egypt. Also, I think the Lord wanted them to have this unleavened bread in this ceremony every year so they could look back and remember that it wasn't anything of the world that saved us. Leaven speaks of mankind and the world and what man can do and his strength. And God says, but none of that was at work in your provision, in your deliverance, in your salvation.
The arm of the flesh did not help you at all. Yahweh, the Lord, is the one who delivered you. So no unleavened bread will be in this feast. I want you to look back that I took you out of the world, out of Egypt, and I did it alone and no power of the flesh or the world was involved at all. Brothers and sisters, is it not a hallelujah and praise the Lord that our salvation is all of God?
We didn't bring anything from Egypt. Can we add this to it, Lord? The Lord said, well, I don't need anything else. The provision of my precious blood, of my precious son, is sufficient.
For your forgiveness and your salvation. So we see that there is a consummation. There is an ending, if you will, of the Passover meal of the Jews. And now we come to the second word. Not only a word of consummation, but a word of transformation. We see this in verses 26 and verse 27 and 28.
Let's read all those together again. While they were eating, Jesus took some bread, and after a blessing he broke it and gave it to the disciples. He said, take, eat, this is my body. And when he had taken a cup and given thanks, he gave it to them, saying, drink from it, all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. Now, the Jewish nation, of course, had held vigorously and regularly to this Passover meal for all of these ages. As a matter of fact, it had been like 1,500 years that they hadn't been doing this when Jesus takes the Passover and transformed it. Again, they're celebrating how on that night of the Passover, the death angel visited the houses of all the Egyptians, but passed over our houses because the blood was applied, and God gave us a great and mighty deliverance.
But now, 2,000 years later, God does something to his son, I should say 1,500 years or so later, in coming to this meal and transforming it from a deliverance from Egyptian bondage to a deliverance from sinful bondage. The Lord's table, if you will, is a picture of how the Jewish Passover is now no longer needed. The Jewish Passover, if you will, is swallowed up in the greatness and in the deliverance of the Lord Jesus Christ. You see, the Passover was a type of Christ. The Passover was a foreshadowing of Jesus and his work of delivering us through his work on the cross.
It's a prophetic picture of his great sacrifice and salvation. So the Passover no longer has a purpose. The Passover has come to a completion, a consummation of something much higher and much greater, even the greater one, the Lord Jesus Christ. The Passover is now completely unnecessary, and the Passover is now obsolete. The Passover celebration is no longer authorized or recognized by God.
It's something like if you go into a jewelry store, sometimes they'll have a black piece of velvet there, and they'll put the diamonds on the velvet or the jewels on the velvet so that they will pop out. Well, that's what the Passover was. It was like the black cloth that would show us the diamond of Jesus Christ.
It was the black cloth of the deliverance of Egypt compared to the diamond of the deliverance of Jesus Christ. He transformed the Passover into the Lord's table. So we today partake of this juice and partake of this bread.
We have a far more glorious, far more wondrous, far more powerful and real deliverance. Jesus said in verse 26, the bread is now symbolic of his body. We do not eat a bread that symbolizes deliverance from Egypt, but the symbol is his very body that became sin for us. That became our guilt offering. And through his death on the cross, we are separated not from Egypt like ancient Israel was, we are separated from sin.
Sin's penalty progressively sends power and eventually from sin's penalty and presence altogether. That's what we celebrate. But he said not only does the bread symbolically represent his body, he says the juice is symbolic of his blood. In the Passover, they were to find an unblemished lamb, a literal four-legged lamb, and slay that animal and apply that blood to the doorpost and to the lentil. But that does not save us. Now we have the blood of the true Lamb of God. They had a temporal deliverance. Through the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ, we have a firm and permanent, even eternal deliverance from sin. Friends, through Jesus Christ, no claim can ever be laid against us again. It's permanent.
It's eternal. The blood he set on the cross of Calvary, which was the world's altar, is a blood that cleanses from all sin. This reminds ourselves again of 1 Peter 1, 18-20.
Knowing that you were not redeemed with perishable things, like silver or gold, you could put in there, or a four-legged lamb, from your futile way of life, inherited from your forefathers, but with precious blood as of a lamb, unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ. Oh, look at verse 20. For he was foreknown before the foundation of the world, but has appeared in these last times for the sake of you. Well, Jesus has been foreknown even before the Passover. He's known in the Passover. He was foreknown before the foundation of the world. He was the lamb slain that would indeed take away the sin of the world. And then he's pictured, and there are types of him and foreshadowings of him, all through the Old Testament, and of course, very prominently in the Passover meal. So he's pictured in all of these.
He's fulfilled all of these, and he did it for our sake. Well, a key thought here, though, even when the Jews overtook that Passover, the death angel came over their houses, didn't visit their houses, but visited all the houses in Egypt, killing the firstborn in all of those households. The Egyptians, well, at that point, didn't allow Israel to leave, but actually demanded that they leave.
Get out of here. And so they left. They were delivered from the slavery and the bondage of Egypt, but there was one devastating problem. They took Egypt with them. You see, Egypt is a symbol of worldliness. Egypt is a symbol of ungodliness. Egypt is a symbol of sin.
And they carried all that out in their hearts with them. In Exodus chapter 16, verses 2 and 3, we see evidence of this. The Bible says the whole congregation of the sons of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness.
The sons of Israel said to them, that's to their leaders, Moses and Aaron. Just as a side note here, we have a lot of preachers here. A lot of preachers follow our ministry. You'll find out, preacher, that when people are agitated at God, they get agitated with you. When people don't honor God, pastor, they won't honor you.
When people scoff and ridicule and mock God, they'll mock and ridicule and scoff at you. So they turned it on Moses and Aaron. They say to them, would that we had died by the Lord's hand in the land of Egypt when we sat by the pots of meat. In other words, it was better back there in Egypt. And when we ate bread to the full, we have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger. We should have just stayed in Egypt and died there than to come out into this.
That's what happens when someone makes a false profession of faith. Pretty soon, it's not fun anymore. It's not exciting anymore. There's aspects of duty and bearing a cross and sacrifice for the Lord's sake.
To love your brothers and sisters, to be faithful to your local church congregation. Not always exciting. People grumble and complain. We have a whole network, if you will, of professing congregations across our world today. And their whole modus operandi is, come here, we'll make it fun. Well, I think our modus operandi ought to be, come here, we'll make it real. Well, these Jews said, we want it to be more fun.
We want it to be more relaxing. We want to be more at ease, like we were in Egypt. Well, they had had all the ceremonies that God had given them. God's given them the law through Moses.
They had their rituals. They had all these rituals of cleansings and outward motions of religion, but none of that can clear Egypt out of the heart. Only the power of Christ can do that.
Only the power of Christ can transform you. Now, it doesn't all leave immediately, does it? Don't you wish it did?
Oh, actually, we don't. God has a purpose for our struggles and our wrestling, our processes of sanctification. It doesn't just all dissipate away when you first get saved. There's a wrestling and a striving and a working, but if you're really saved, there's something real in you that says, I hate me and I hate my sin, and I want to love Jesus more. And I want to love Jesus more.
I got to get back to my small group. I need the encouragement to stay more faithful and love Jesus more. I need to stay under strong Bible preaching because there's something in me that says, I need that and I want to love Christ more and serve Christ more. You see, only Christ can make that change. Get the Egypt out of the heart. So when we celebrate this supper, we're celebrating something far greater than an outward observance. We take the supper as an outward observance of an inward transformation in our own hearts.
That's what makes it real. Only the power of Christ can do that. Dr. Roy Beeman was one of my professors in graduate school and Dr. Beeman was a country boy from Mayfield, Kentucky. But God gave him a genius brain.
Dr. Beeman studied in 32 different languages. He'd just go anywhere in the world and just, for fun, and I like to do this too, but I'm no genius by any stretch. He'd just go to museums and just study stuff.
Just look at stuff and marvel over things. But he was a simple, contrite and humble man and he would always stand in class, two or three times in every class. Now, when I had him, he was probably in his mid-80s. He said, brother, I'm just a sinner saved by grace. And he said, everywhere I've been in the world and everywhere I've studied and everywhere I've lectured and everywhere I've witnessed to men, I'll ask them one question. Has your sin burden been lifted? Are you still under the weight and the guilt and the condemnation and feel the dirtiness of your sin or has it been lifted? He said, the only people that can ever, with an affirmative and a joy, say yes, it has, are those who have come to Christ. No other religion, no other system, no other washing, no other cleansing, no ceremonies, no rituals, no rites, no efforts at good works, nothing.
That's all Egypt. You're not gonna get it out that way. Only Christ. Some of you this day, this moment, sitting in that pew need to turn your heart to Christ and say, oh, Christ, cleanse me. Oh, Christ, save me. Oh, Christ, forgive me. And he will.
You know why? Because he's mighty to save. He's mighty to save. Well, thirdly, we have a word of consummation. The Passover meal rather is swallowed up into the Lord's table.
It's fulfilled its purpose. It was just a type of picture and now the reality Jesus has come. He's the true deliverer. Then we had the word of transformation. Now, Jesus literally taught them, I'm transforming this from a picture of the Passover to a picture of myself. No longer the blood of a lamb, my blood. No longer the bread of this unleavened table, but I am the bread of heaven. And now we have a word of anticipation. He says there in verse 29 and 30, but I say to you, I will not drink of the fruit of this vine from now on until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom. And after singing a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.
Interesting, I've always been intrigued by that. Jesus takes the cup. I just have a water bottle. And I think I'll take a drink of it. Jesus takes the cup and he says, I want you to know I'm not drinking of the vine again until we have another supper together.
Until I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom. Now, this was to assure the disciples and us that he's coming again. We're gonna inherit a new heavens and a new earth. We call it the eternal state, the kingdom of God, and there we'll have another supper, the marriage supper of the lamb with him. The Lord's supper will continue, in a sense, on into the eternal ages. But that'll be a greater celebration, a perfection and a glory unlike what we know now. Now, when we take this, if the Spirit of God will help us, when we take this, there are the seeds and the glimmers of the glory we have as one in our Savior.
Oh, but in that day. In that day, it's gonna be known to the full in ways we can't even possibly comprehend now. Revelation 19, verses seven through nine. Let us rejoice and be glad and give glory to him for the marriage supper of the lamb has come and his bride, that's us, has made herself ready.
It was given to her to clothe herself in fine linen, bright and clean, for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints. Then he said to me, write, blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the lamb. And he said, these are the true words of God. But here in verse 30, before we get way out yonder in the future eternal state, when we'll have that last supper with our Lord, or rather, I shouldn't say last, the beginning of the end, if you will, which we'll never have an end, but we'll begin a new thing with him in that day and we'll have a supper with him. And he says, I'll not drink the cup until that day comes, at that day's coming. It's almost like the Lord sits in heaven today refusing to rejoice in that cup until all of his lambs are home safe.
Till everyone's home. And by the way, by the way, of all that the Father gives him, he loses not one. He's getting every one of them home.
Every one of us home. It's as if the Lord sits in heaven in joyous, restful contemplation at all the perfections of our salvation, how he foreknew us and how he predestined us and how he called us and how he justifies us and how he is now sanctifying us and in that day, how he will glorify us. I want it to do something to your heart. I want it to do something to your soul to know that Jesus longs for you to be with him. He's longing for that day.
He said, I'm not gonna drink this until we're together again. The rich, omnipotent, if you will, love affair of Jesus with his church. And then we come to the marriage supper of the Lamb. All will be in attendance at the marriage supper of the Lamb, every eye lovingly and honorably and joyously focusing on Jesus. And perhaps Jesus will say to us, I came to the earth and I rescued you. I've completed your salvation. Now it's time for your glorification. It is time. Angel, bring me the cup. And there we will enjoy our communion with the him forever and ever and ever. So this supper is a consummation. It's a transformation and an anticipation of that which is coming for all of God's children.
