You may be weak financially, you may be weak emotionally, you may be weak circumstantially, but you are weak. Nevertheless, Dr. Tony Evans says we don't have to stay that way. The purpose of the Lord's Table is to counteract Satan's attempt to make your life weak, sick, and dead. This is the alternative broadcast featuring the timeless biblical teachings from the archives of Dr. Tony Evans. Dr. Evans says something many Christians take for granted could be the key to unlocking victory in our lives.
Let's join him as he explains. The most important part of our service is the part that's least understood and most underutilized, and it is communion. Most people don't understand it.
They take a wafer, they take a cup, and there's maybe this general atmospheric understanding of it. But if we really understood the Lord's Table, the Lord's Supper, as it is called in Scripture, communion, the Eucharist, it would be a transforming experience in our lives. You see, many of us came in here with things sermons can't fix. Many of us have come in here so broken that inspiration can't last, because you're going right back to the situation.
You need something bigger and better and deeper and deeper that will infect and affect whatever it is that has engulfed you. So important is this subject that it is found in each of the Gospels. Each of the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John discuss Jesus's Last Supper with his disciples. And in 1 Corinthians 11, Paul gives his extended version of its symbolism, significance, and its meaning.
That's what I want to instruct us on today. He says, I received from the Lord that which I delivered to you. God told me to tell you this. I received from God what I'm telling you about now. When Jesus was betrayed, He took the bread. He gave thanks, Eucharist. He gave thanks.
He broke it. This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me. This is the cup, verse 25. This cup is the new covenant in my blood.
Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me. He says, do this because this is for you. This is for you. It's for you.
That raises the question, what, in what way is it for me? Jesus has died now. Jesus is gone.
He's left. And now Paul is writing the church as to how they function. And he says, this bread, this cup, this cross is for you. The cross has already happened.
The cross is in the past. And yet He says, you are to do this. And then He says, and as often as you do it. So evidently, it was real important to make it often and not irregular. There must be something about this thing that He encourages often-ness and not occasional usage. He says, this is the cup.
This is the bread. This is the new covenant. It is through this arrangement that He ministers to His people and—here's a word I could use—fuels them for life. As often as you go to the filling station, you receive what is needed in order for the car to function and arrive at the destination.
And extended time of driving without refueling will make you stuck. What He is saying is that the new arrangement that I have with you must be fueled. He goes on, verse 27. Therefore, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. So now He introduces communion and taking it and taking it in an unworthy manner.
Please don't misunderstand that. He's not saying that the person is unworthy. He says the manna is unworthy. That's different. None of us, in and of ourselves, are worthy in our own struggles, our own sins, our own failures, our own idiosyncrasies.
No, we're not. He's talking about the manna, how it is done. The concept of unworthy means legitimate versus illegitimate. It meant to treat something sacred as common, to treat it as everyday, to cause it to lose its solemn significance, to just do it because it's communion time, to lose its worth. Let's put it that way.
To lose its substance. You see, when Jesus died on the cross, that wasn't a casual moment. It wasn't like, He didn't have nothing else to do today.
Let me go die for the sins of the world. That was not a casual moment. That was a substantive moment. That wasn't a eternal moment when Jesus said, my God, my God, why has thou forsaken me?
That was a moment that mattered. One of the worst things you can do is make ritual what is supposed to be sacred. To eat in an unworthy manner meant to lessen it. That's why He condemns them in the way they were handling this. They lost the significance, verse 33. So then, my brethren, when you come together to eat, wait for one another.
If anyone is hungry, let him eat at home so that you will not come together for judgment. In other words, they were very cavalier because they lost the significance of it. The significance of chameleon is tied to the significance of the cross. And the significance of the cross was the defeat of Satan, the forgiveness of sin, the transformation of life, and the flow of blessing.
All of that's in the new covenant. And this flow of blessing is called grace. It's like pulling up your car and having the fuel pumped into your tank and into your tank. It is a flow of provision because you're at the place of feeding. That is, you're at the gas tank, and it is flowing to you from underneath the ground, the fuel needed for you to keep going.
What chameleon is designed to do is to flow or fuel your spirit with the life of Christ. It is not common, that is, to be looked at or viewed commonly. So to eat or drink unworthily is to eat or drink illegitimately or to treat as common what God calls sacred.
It is the matter in which it's done. It's not suggesting you have to be perfect before you come to Communion. Then you'd never take it. No, it's designed that you see the seriousness of it when you take it. And how often do you take it? As often as you need it.
As often as you need it. He goes on. But a man must examine himself, and in so doing, he is to eat the bread and drink of the cup. What's the examination? The examination is to determine, am I taking this in a manner that recognizes what it's for? That recognizes what it's for.
That's the question. Do I really recognize what this thing is for? This thing, this unique thing, this special thing, this sacred thing, this one-of-a-kind thing that no sermon can duplicate and no song can ever compete with. This thing is actually the way God is going to transfer the victory of Calvary into my life. Am I examining that I understand that that's what this is about?
God is going to take a 2,000-year-old event and transfer it to me in my life and in my circumstances. For he who eats and drinks, eats and drinks judgment to himself if he does not judge the body rightly. He says, if this examination doesn't allow you, doesn't cause you to understand and to see the seriousness of the moment, the thing designed to help you can wind up hurting you. For this reason, many among you are weak, are sick, and a number have died early, sleep. For this reason, many, he's talking to Christians, are weak. Now, the opposite of weak is strong. So, instead of being strong, you're weak. Instead of being on top of life, life's on top of you. Instead of being victorious, you're living in defeat.
Instead of winning, you're losing. And weakness can show up in a whole bunch of areas. He says, but some of you are weak. You may be weak financially, you may be weak emotionally, you may be weak circumstantially, you may be weak circumstantially, but you are weak for this reason. And this reason had nothing to do with the sermon, didn't have anything to do with the song.
This reason had to do with the table. He says, for this reason, many are sick, health issues that are not overcome, physical problems that are not being fixed. They go on moment by moment, week by week, year by year, since many are sick. For this reason, some are in the grave. Now, this is not comfortable, it's not fun, but I think you would want to know it if there was a way to go from weak to strong, sick to healthy, and dead to alive.
I think you want to know that. He says, for this reason, some have died before their time. That's a powerful statement, and it raises some troubling questions.
Dr. Evans will return to address them in just a moment. First though, with Easter just around the corner, you've likely seen store mailers filled with springtime images of flowers, candies, bunnies, and decorated eggs. And while there's nothing wrong with those traditions, they don't present the true story of Easter and its life-changing impact for us today. That's why Dr. Evans wrote the book, The Power of the Cross. It'll show you why truly understanding and appreciating the purpose of the cross is the only thing that can turn empty, meaningless religion into something vibrant and alive.
Learn how to access all the benefits, blessings, and power the Lord died to give you. Get in touch with us and get a copy of The Power of the Cross. For a limited time, we're offering this special resource as our gift to those who partner with us through a financial contribution.
And as an added bonus, you'll also receive all 14 full-length lessons from Tony's current teaching series, Returning to the Cross. You can get the messages on CDs or downloadable MP3s when you make your donation at tonyevans.org. All the details are right there on the homepage. Or if it's easier, call us at 1-800-800-3222. Again, that's 1-800-800-3222. I'll repeat that contact information for you after part two of today's message.
Here's Dr. Evans. The Bible makes it clear that Satan's goal is to steal, kill, and destroy. That is his goal.
His middle name is devolution. He wants to deteriorate things, destroy things. That's what he does.
That's what he does. Now, let me make a proviso here. Every sickness isn't because the devil got you sick. You know, every time somebody dies, it doesn't mean because, you know, they did something wrong.
Obviously. Because there's a point where the man wants to die. He's talking about a certain kind of weakness, and he's talking about a certain kind of sickness, and he's talking about a certain kind of death. And he's talking about a weakness or sickness or death that is because the proper examination didn't take place. Now, I can hear what some of you are saying now, because I know what you're thinking.
You're saying, well, I know how to fix that. I ain't going to take communion. I ain't going to bother with it then. If there's that risk of negative, illegitimate repercussions, I'll just skip it.
Well, just so you know, remember that's going back up, as often as you take it. To not take it is to not receive the blessing that flows from it. To not take it is not to receive what God wants to deliver to you.
To not take it is to not benefit from it. The purpose of the Lord's table—watch this—is to counteract Satan's attempt to make your life weak, sick, and dead. That is the purpose of the table, because he defeated him on the cross. And you have to understand, he is the only one who's defeated him.
Nobody else defeated him, including you. So if you're going to defeat him, you need the cross, because that's the only thing that defeated him. Since you need the cross, you need a way to make that 2,000-year-old event relevant to you today. God says, well, I have a way to make 2,000 years ago work for you today is at the table. Because when you eat this bread and drink this cup, understanding, giving it worth, the value that it deserves, then it becomes an importer of life. It imparts strength where there was weakness. It imparts health where there was sickness. It imparts life where death is on the way. And it does that because it deals with the demonic reasons for why you're weak, the demonic reasons for why you're sick, and the demonic reasons for why you are dying.
It deals with the spiritual cause for the physical, psychological, social, financial, whatever it is, reasons for it, if those are the reasons for it. Now, don't get me wrong. Every weakness is not because the devil is in charge or every sickness is not because of, well, Job got sick, and the Bible says he was a righteous man.
So don't misunderstand me. That's the health, wealth gospel that, you know, that, you know, spiritual people never get sick. That's not true. That's why spiritual people die. But what he is talking about are those that are caused by the spiritual realm, the evil spiritual realm, which the Lord's table and only the Lord's table can address.
Nothing else can address it. He says, for this one reason, many are weak and sick and a number of sleep. Just one reason, and that is not approaching the table for what the table is for. The goal of communion, the Lord's Supper, the Eucharist, the Lord's table is to bring wholeness of life where sin, Satan, and demons are bringing the disruption to your life. It is designed to give you a physical expression of feeding a spiritual reality.
Now, I know there's a fair question that you could ask here, and it is a fair question. How does a simple eating do all this? Watch this now. The same way a simple eating plunged the whole world into sin in Genesis 3. They bit a piece of fruit, death came. They bit a piece of fruit, marriage conflict came. They bit a piece of fruit, and now death reigned from Adam. They bit a piece of fruit, and now man must work by the sweat of his brow and would no longer enjoy his labor. All because somebody bit a piece of fruit. They got devilish consequences because they were eating at the devil's table. Well, now, if the devil can have a piece of fruit that plunges the world in sin, simply by taking one bite, how much more the eternal Son of God can deliver to his people life, restoration, recovery, blessing by eating his meal. So it's not just chewing a wafer and drinking a cup.
It is drawing down a life and the repercussions. Did you know there are two trees in the garden? The tree now is good and evil. You can't eat it, but the tree of life. That was the tree they did not bite, and that was the tree that would give them life. What Jesus Christ is saying is, on the cross, on another tree, I have offered life.
Eat from it. Communion is God's ordained channel for spiritual well-being. Satan wants to keep God's people from the table. He wants to render it as insignificant. It's minor. Well, the worship really hasn't begun yet.
They haven't begun singing. He wants to keep you from the table, because he's not threatened by a song, and he's not threatened by a sermon. He's threatened by the cross.
That's the only thing that threatens him. So he wants to keep you from the cross. I've watched all of the Indiana Jones movies.
I love me some Indy. Harrison Ford had that character down. The one I loved best was when he was in search of the Holy Grail. He was in search of the cup of blessing. As he is in search of the Holy Grail, there are enemies that don't want him to get it. They don't want him to get it. They're fighting him.
They're doing everything. Finally, they shoot his father. His father lay dying, and there was no way to save his life unless he could get to the cup. Now, he must do some things to get to this cup, because everything's trying to chop his head off. He's got to exercise his great faith and step out.
He's got to be able to spell the name Jehovah Wright. And all of those were death traps to keep him from the cup. He finally crosses over to the area that has all these cups.
He needs this cup because death is in his family. His father's dying, and there's nothing on earth that can save him. There is a guardian of the grail, the guardian of the grail, and then he says something to Indiana Jones. He says, Choose wisely.
Choose wisely. Behind him rushes in the enemy. The enemy picks up a cup and drinks from the cup and turns into this monster and disintegrates, and the guardian of the grail said, He did not choose wisely. Indiana Jones is looking at all these cups up there, and he doesn't want to make a mistake. He wants to get the right thing.
He wants to get the right thing. He's not just getting the cup to get the cup. He's getting the cup to get the life. See, he's getting that cup for the life it offers, not for refreshment.
He's not getting it to quench his thirst. He's getting it for life, and he peruses it, and he says, Which one? Which one? Which one? Which one? It's whole, all these cups. Which one?
Which one? And then he remembers. Jesus was a carpet. He worked with wood.
There was only one wooden cup. He dipped it. He took it back to his father and gave it to his father, and death turned into life. Dr. Tony Evans, talking about how our remembrance of the cross can replace our weakness with strength, part of his two-volume, 14-lesson series, Returning to the Cross. This teaching collection contains a lot of bonus material we haven't had time to present here on the broadcast, so I encourage you to explore the complete series by taking advantage of that special offer I mentioned earlier.
You can get all the full-length messages in the collection on CD or digital download, along with the companion follow-up book, The Power of the Cross. They're both yours with our thanks in return for your contribution toward this ministry. To get the details, just visit tonyevans.org. Or if it's more convenient, just give us a call at 1-800-800-3222, where a friendly team member is ready to help with your resource request. Our phone center is open 24-7, so call when you can. Again, that's 1-800-800-3222, or online at tonyevans.org. When Jesus told us to take up our cross, he wasn't talking about hanging a piece of jewelry around our neck. Tomorrow Dr. Evans will take a look at what it means to merge with the cross. I hope you'll join us for that.
