the fruit of the vine, from now on until the kingdom of God comes. And when he had taken some bread and given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, This is my body which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me. And in the same way he took the cup after they had eaten, saying, This cup which is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood. But behold, the hand of the one betraying me is with me on the table. For indeed, the Son of Man is
going as it has been determined. But where to that man by whom he is betrayed? And then following a conversation, we read in verse 39, And he came out and proceeded, as was his custom, to the Mount of Olives. And the disciples also followed him. And when he arrived at the place, he said to them, Pray that you may not enter into temptation. And he withdrew from them about a stone's throw, and he knelt down and began to pray, saying, Father, if thou art willing, remove this cup
from me. Yet not my will, but thine be done. Now an angel from heaven appeared to him, strengthening him. And being in agony, he was praying very fervently. and his sweat became like drops of blood falling down upon the ground. And when he rose from prayer, he came to the disciples and found them sleeping from sorrow and said to them, Why are you sleeping? Rise and pray
that you may not enter into temptation. And while he was still speaking, behold, a multitude came, and the one called Judas, one of the twelve, was preceding them. And then down in verse 54, And having arrested him, they led him away. And then followed the night of trial, of torture, culminating in his crucifixion on the cross by nine o 'clock the next morning. The Lord Jesus Christ ate that last Passover meal with his disciples and said to them, I will not eat like this with
you again. observance of this until it is fulfilled in the kingdom. I believe that the Lord Jesus was referring to that time in the future that we call the marriage supper of the Lamb. When with the twelve and with those of us who have been saved during this age, he will sit down at a meal and it will be the meal celebrating his marriage to the Church, to those of us who've been saved during this time, during this dispensation. After they had eaten the meal together, he went
to the garden. His suffering began. It began with prayer, because in his humanity, the thought of the cross and of the despicable shame, the agony that went with that, was grievous to him. Undoubtedly, as he prayed, he prayed for strength. When he said, if it be possible, take this cup from me, he was not shirking what had been determined from eternity past that he should fulfill. But it was simply in his humanity he was asking, if there is another way, let it be so. But of
course there was no other way. And gladly he accepted that cup from the Father. Thus, he received the mandate. The garden was agony for Christ. We do not know how long he was there praying. We know that the disciples slept through most of that time. They had had an exhausting week and day. Even Peter, James, and John had been selected to go with him a little further into the garden, fell asleep. That Garden of Gethsemane was located at the foot of the Mount of Olives.
It was a special place where, we are told, the elite people of Jerusalem often resorted. It was a place that was well manicured. The Mount of Olives was covered with many olive trees, but there was this special area set aside called the Garden of Gethsemane. And it was there that Jesus and his disciples apparently often went for times of prayer and meditation and fellowship.
On that last night as they were there, Jesus, as we read in the other Gospels, prayed, falling upon the ground, and then he would get up and walk and pray and then fall upon the ground again. And over and over again that process occurred as he struggled in prayer. and as he cried out to God, and as he accepted what God had called him to do for us. And then he was arrested through betrayal and went to the cross, and there his
blood was shed. He offered up his body for our sins, thus giving meaning to the elements that we observe tonight. He said to them at that last meal together, this is my body. And of course, he did not mean literally this bread is becoming my body any more than when he said, I am the door, he became a door. He's simply saying that this bread is symbolic of my body. This wine is symbolic of my blood. We come together tonight because we have been commanded by our Lord to
do so. During this age, we are to observe this ordinance of the Lord's Supper. It is to accomplish a number of things for our fellowship. One of the most important is that it is to accomplish a cleansing, a catharsis of each of us individually and of us collectively. We see this, for example, in 1 Corinthians 5, and I will ask you again to turn there. draws a parallel between what we do and a situation that the Corinthian church
was in. I simply remind you that there was a man who was a part of their fellowship who was living in open sin without any repentance, and the church up to this point had not rebuked him, but rather had with... pride accepted him, thinking that it was good to be broad -minded. And so the apostle writes that this man is to be removed from their fellowship. He says in verse 3, I on my part, though absent in body but present in spirit, have already judged him who has so
committed this, as though I were present. In the name of our Lord Jesus, when you are assembled, and I with you in spirit, Such an action is the most severe that any church can take in its discipline process. There are various stages of church discipline. And the one that is brought before us here is that final, culminating stage, when an individual shows no repentance or submission to the leadership of the Church and insists on going on in open sin. It becomes a flagrant, disgracing thing.
In a case like that, such a one is to be removed from the Church, the sphere of the Church, and as the Apostle says that he is to be delivered to Satan. That does not mean that that individual somehow loses his salvation, of course. But it does mean that that person is put outside the sphere of the Church. He is returned to the world in that sense. And the result may well be that his body, physically, he will be torn down, will
degenerate because of that. And yet the result of that is that his spirit will still be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. No question about his salvation. But there's the awful possibility of wasting his life. For having been placed outside the sphere of the Church, he is in a place of chastisement by God and attack by Satan. Well,
we know the result of this, don't we? In 2 Corinthians, the man was restored, and the Apostle writes to them at that time, Reach out to this one as a brother, and since he is repentant, restore him to your fellowship. But he goes on to say in verse 6, your boasting is not good. In other words, your boast about having this man in your fellowship. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough? Anytime you read about leaven in the Bible, it pictures evil.
Leaven never pictures that which is good. It's always evil. He says, clean out the old leaven. that you may be a new lump, just as you are, in fact, unleavened. For Christ our Passover also has been sacrificed. Let us therefore celebrate the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. Here's what the Apostle is doing. He is saying, Christ
our Passover, Lamb. has been sacrificed for us in fulfillment of that feast in the Old Testament. And now he says we enjoy feasting upon Christ just as those Old Testament Jews feasted upon that lamb during the Feast of Unleavened Bread. We now in this age are enjoying that Feast of Unleavened Bread. feasts that we enjoy in Christ spiritually, along with the fellowship that we have with one another. Now what the apostle says here is that fellowship needs to be kept clean
and pure. We need to purge out the leaven so that we remain unleavened in our fellowship and pure and clean. Later in chapter 11 of Corinthians, the apostle again rebukes them because they had not done this. And he says as a result, the church was, was weakened and there were some people in their fellowship who were sick and some who had even died early. How important it is that
we do that. We intend here at this church to practice before God as faithfully as we can and with love and with the gentleness of Christ, church discipline. As a matter of fact, for the last two months we've been dealing with one particular case that we thought we would have to bring before you tonight. for the removal of a person. And we thank God that as that began to get more and more serious, that it resulted in repentance on the part of that person. And it's unnecessary
to do that. But when it becomes necessary for us as a fellowship to do exactly what the Apostle commands us to do here, it will be at this time as we come to the Lord's table. It will not be a time for us to point a finger and judge anyone. It would be a recognition of the importance of keeping ourselves clean. It would also be a rebuke to each of us and a reminder to each of us that our own lives need to be kept free of leaven. That's why the Apostle says that as we come to
this table, we should not come unworthily. In other words, we should not come in an unworthy manner. We should not come unprepared. In fact, we should come to this observance with our hearts having been opened before God. We should have already gone through our lives and purged out any leaven that we have found which the Holy
Spirit has showed to us. As we come to this table tonight, I would like for us to meditate upon these things and to allow the Spirit of God even now To reveal to us any leaven that would be in our lives so that we may quietly and humbly confess before him and cleanse that leaven so that as we observe this table we may do so without leaven and in a worthy manner that would be pleasing to him. Jesus said that we are to do this until he returns and that time that we observe it with
him in heaven. May that day be hastened. that we will see him face to face. But until then, we draw near to him, and he draws near to us as we specifically set aside this time to observe this ordinance. I would like for us now to bow in prayer and to complete the preparation of our hearts, personally and individually, as we come to the bread and the juice. reminding us of the sacrifice that he made for us. Let's meditate
and pray. Father, we thank you for the very special plan of salvation which you and your wisdom ordained before the world was founded. We thank you for your faithfulness in bringing about the fulfillment of your promise. We thank you for the Son who became flesh and dwelt amongst us. We thank you for his blessed submission in receiving the mandate. When he came into the world, he said, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God, a body you have prepared for me. We thank you for the body of Christ which
was broken for us. We thank you that that veil has been rent and that now we may enter into the very holiest place and enjoy your fellowship. Thank you for Jesus. In his name we pray.