Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, vols. 13–63

Verse 1. And you He has quickened. Is it so? Could the Apostle say that to you and to me?

1. Who were dead in trespasses and sins. Look back to what you used to be, to the hole of the pit from where you were lifted—"You has He quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins."

2. Wherein in time past you walked. With a terrible activity of spiritual death.

2. According to the course of this world, according to the Prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now works in the children of disobedience. He makes them to be his forge. There he blows his coals, there he fabricates his instruments. Do you not hear the noise of the infernal bellows when "the children of disobedience" swear and use unclean language? Ah, such were some of us, but we are cleansed! The evil spirit has been driven out and he no more works in us.

3. Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others. You that now commune with God at the Mercy Seat, you that are now His favored children and have received power to become the sons of God—you were once heirs of wrath—"By nature the children of wrath, even as others." Holy Scripture is not complimentary to unrenewed human nature. You may search it through and through to find a single flattering word to unregenerate man, but you will search in vain! This style of speech is left to those who ignore Divine Inspiration. They draw their inspiration from another fountain—from a desire to walk according to the course of this world—according to the Prince of the power of the air. They can use flattering speeches in addressing the ungodly, but the Holy Spirit never does.

4. 5. But God, who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sins. God loved us even when we were dead in sins. His love does not depend upon what we are—it flows from His own heart. It is not love of something good in us—it is love of us because of everything good in Him! Here you see the greatness of His Grace, in that, "He loved us, even when we were dead in sins."

5. Has quickened us together with Christ. Ah, That accounts for everything—"together with Christ." When we get "together with Christ," then are we made alive, then are we saved! Are you, my dear Hearers, "quickened together with

Christ"?

5-7. (By Grace you are saved), and has raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus: that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His Grace in His kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. See how Paul's language grows and swells and rises as he proceeds! Just now, we read of "God, who is rich in mercy." Now the Apostle speaks of "the exceeding riches of His Grace," exceeding expression, exceeding comprehension, exceeding, even, sin, itself, though that is all but infinite. "The exceeding riches of His Grace" are infinity, itself! But they all come to us "through Christ Jesus." Paul will speak of nothing good except that which comes "through Christ Jesus." This is the one conduit through which the streams of Living Water flow to the dead in sin. God's Grace comes to us "Through Christ Jesus," and through Him, alone.

8. For by Grace are you saved through faith. We have this expression, "by Grace are you saved," twice over in this chapter. Paul knew that he needed to repeat himself, or people would forget what he taught. At bottom, all the wanderings from the faith at the present day amount to this—salvation by works instead of salvation by Grace. The battle of the Reformation has to be fought over again! Men are justified by Grace through faith in Christ Jesus. All the enmity of natural men is against that Truth of God. They want to be saved by their own morality and all sorts of things that they put instead of salvation by Grace through faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.

8, 9. And that not of yourselves: it is a gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast. "Oh!" said one to me just now, "the man who is saved by his own righteousness cannot do much in the line of praising." "No, my dear Brother," I replied, "except he praises himself—and he can generally do that pretty well." Your self-made man usually worships his creator very earnestly—and your self-saved man glorifies him that saved him.

10. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus. Nothing without Christ Jesus, you see. The mark of the pierced hand is on everything—"We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus."

10. Unto Good works, which God has before ordained that we should walk in them. God has decreed that He will have a holy people. This is His purpose, His ordinance to which He will always stand. He will make it good. He will make sinful people holy and disobedient people obedient to the faith.

11. Therefore remember, that you, being in time past Gentiles in the flesh, who are called Uncircumcision by that which is called Circumcision in the flesh made by hands. Remember what you were. You were not the chosen Israelites, you have not the Covenant mark in your flesh.

12. That at that time you were without Christ. Which is the worst state of all, far worse than being without circumcision.

12. Being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel. Outsiders, rank outsiders, far away from any rights, or any participation in the rights of God's children.

12. And strangers from the Covenants of promise. Utter strangers to the Covenants made with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

12. Having no hope, and without God in the world. It is an awful description, but a truthful description of what we were.

13. But now. The Apostle has turned over a new leaf in the book of our history—"but now." Oh, what a change from the past to the present! "But now"—

13. In Christ Jesus. See how Paul keeps harping on that one string? Note how he links us with Christ Jesus. There is nothing for us without Christ and His Cross.

13. You who sometimes were far off are made near by the blood of Christ. Paul can never have too much of Christ. It is Christ, Christ, Christ, Christ—like the harp of Anacreon's—he wished to sing of Cadmus, but his harp resounded love, alone. And so the harp of Paul resounds with Christ, alone—Christ, alone! He always comes back to that theme. It was said of one eminent commentator that he could not find Christ in the Scripture where He was. But it was said of Cocceius that he found Christ where He was not. I would rather find Christ where He is not, than not to find Him where He is! There are plenty who err in that second direction, nowadays.

14. For He is our peace. Paul cannot do without Christ, you see. He will bring Him in everywhere.

14. Who has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of partition between us. There is no longer the division between Jews and Gentiles.

15. Having abolished in His flesh. See, it is always Christ—His flesh, His blood, His life! There must always be something about Him—"Having abolished in His flesh."

15. The enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in Himself of two one new man, so making peace; and that He. I cannot help reminding you that you must not overlook the fact that Paul will not go a hair's breadth away from Christ.

16-18. Might reconcile both unto God in one body by the Cross, having slain the enmity thereby: and came and preached peace to you which were afar off, and to them that were near. For through Him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father. There is the whole Trinity in that one verse! Christ, the Spirit, the Father. It needs the Trinity to make a Christian! And when you have got a Christian, it needs the Trinity to make a prayer! You cannot pray a single prayer aright without Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

19. Now, therefore. Another of Paul's blessed, "nows." It was, "but now," a little while ago. Now he has another "now." "Now therefore"—

19. You are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints, and of the household of God. You are not only in the Kingdom, but you are in the royal household, which is still better! You are princes of the blood imperial! You are peers of the court of Heaven—"and the household of God."

20. And are built. You are not loose stones—you are built—

20. 21. Upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the Chief Cornerstone; in whom. You see, it is always that, in Him, in Christ—"in whom"—

21. All the building fitly framed together grows unto an holy temple in the Lord. There is no Church without Christ, no temple without Him as its Cornerstone, its Priest, its Glory.

22. In whom you also are built together for an habitation of God through the Spirit. And all this hangs upon that first sentence, "You has He quickened." Is it so, Beloved? If you are spiritually dead, nothing here belongs to you. But if He has quickened you, you may take every single sentence of the chapter and say, "That is mine, and glory be to the Grace of

"What do you mean by this service?" Exodus 12:26.

IN a spiritual religion everything must be understood. That which is not spiritual, but ritualistic, contents itself with the outward form. Under the Jewish dispensation there was a very strong tendency in that direction, but it was kept in check to some extent. Under the Christian faith this tendency must not be tolerated at all. We must know the meaning of what we do, otherwise we are not profited. We do not believe in the faith of the man who was asked what he believed and replied that he believed what the church believed. "But what does the church believe?" "The church believes what I believe." "Well, but what do you and the church believe?" "We both believe the same thing." He would not explain himself any further. We look upon such expressions as the talk of ignorance and not the language offaith. Faith knows what she believes and can give a reason for the hope that is in her meekness and fear.

Concerning the Passover, the young people among the Jews were encouraged to ask their parents this question, "What do you mean by this service?" Children should be encouraged to ask such gracious questions now. I am afraid they are not prompted to do so as they used to be in Puritan times. After the sermon always came the catechizing of the children when they were at home—and every father was bound to be attentive to the sermon—because he had to ask the boys and girls in the evening what they had heard. The children were more attentive, then, than now, because they had to be prepared to answer any questions of their parents. Cultivate in your children a desire to understand everything connected with our holy faith!

In this chapter, from which I culled my text, the parents are taught how to answer their children. If the parent is ignorant, a question from his child is inconvenient. He finds his ignorance exposed and he, perhaps, is vexed with the child who has been the innocent means of unveiling him to himself. Be ready to tell your children what the ordinances of the Gospel mean. Explain Baptism to them, explain the Lord's Supper to them and above all, explain the Gospel—and let them know, as far as words can make it plain, what is that great mystery whereby we are saved, whereby sin is forgiven, and we are made the children of God.

I thought it would be profitable, if God gave me strength for the exercise, very briefly to answer the question supposed to be put by an intelligent youth, "What do you mean by this service?"—this service that is called, by some people, "Holy Communion." Which is sometimes called the "Eucharist." And among us is called, "the Lord's Supper," or, "the breaking of bread." What does it mean?

It means many things, but chiefly five, of which I will now speak.

I. This supper is, first of all, A MEMORIAL.

If you want to keep something in mind from generation to generation, you may attempt it in many ways. You may erect a bronze column, or you may engrave a record of it upon brass in the church. Eventually the column will get sold for old bronze and somebody will steal the brass plates from the church—and the memorial will disappear. You may write it upon marble if you please, but in our climate, at any rate, the inscription is very apt to be obliterated and the old stones, though they last long, may, after a time, be as dumb as the treasures of Nineveh and Egypt were for centuries. These monuments did preserve the records, but they were hidden under the sand, or buried beneath the ruins of cities. And though they now have a tongue and are speaking forcibly, yet whatever had been entrusted to them would have been forgotten while they were lying under the sand of the desert, or in the debris of the palaces of Koyunjik. There are other ways of preserving memorials, such as writing in books, but books can be lost. Many valuable works of the ancients have entirely ceased and no copies of them can be found. Some of the books mentioned in the Old Testament which were not inspired books, but still were books which we should greatly value, have quite passed out of existence.

It is found that upon the whole, one of the best ways of remembering a fact is to have some ceremony connected with it which shall be frequently performed so as to keep the fact in memory. I suppose that Absalom will never be forgotten. He built himself a pillar in the king's dale—he knew his own infamous history and he thought it might be forgotten. No one would care to remember it, so he built himself a monument. And there it stands—or what is reputed to be that monument, to this day—and every Arab who passes by the spot throws a stone at it. Absalom will better be remembered by the ceremony of throwing stones at his tomb than by any record in marble!

To turn your thoughts to something infinitely higher, I cannot conceive of a surer and better method of keeping the death of Christ in mind than of meeting together, as we shall do tonight, for the breaking of bread and the pouring out of the juice of the vine in memory of His death. Other facts may be forgotten—this one can never be. Tonight and every first day of the week, in 10,000 places of worship, Believers meet together for the breaking of bread in remembrance of Christ's Cross and passion, His precious death and burial. Those great facts can never pass out of mind. Jesus said to His disciples, "This do in remembrance of Me." In obeying His command, you are doing what is most effectual in keeping your Lord in remembrance. As I preach, tonight, having no sort of reliance upon my own words, I want you to practice them as I go along. Then you will be like the woman who said that when she heard a sermon about light weights and short measures, though she forgot what the preacher said, when she got home, she remembered to burn her bushel, which was short. So, if you can just practice the sermon as you hear it, it will be well.

Remember, then, that you come to this Table tonight to remember an absent Friend. Jesus has gone away. He who loved us better than any other ever loved us, has left us for a while. We sometimes take little parting gifts from friends, and they say to us—

"When this you see Remember me.

Probably, almost everybody here has, at some time or other, had certain tokens of remembrance by which they might be reminded of some dear one who is far away across the seas—out of sight—but not out of mind. You come to the Communion Table, then, to remember your absent Friend.

You come, also, chiefly to remember His great deed of love. This supper is a memorial of what Jesus did for you when He was on the earth. "Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." He laid down His life for you—remember that tonight. "He loved me, and gave Himself for me"—dwell on that fact. Let these words wake the echoes in your hearts, "Gethsemane!" "Gabbatha!" "Golgotha!" Can you forget all that Jesus suffered there on your behalf? If you have let these things slip in any degree from your heart's affections, come and write them down again! Come to the Table and there celebrate the memorial of His love, wounds, agonies and death for you—

You are also called upon to remember a dear Friend who, although He has gone away, has gone about your business. It was expedient for you that He should go away. He is doing you more good where He has gone than He could have done if He stayed here. He is interceding for you tonight. Your business would miscarry were it not for Him—within the veil that hides Him from you, He is pleading for you. His power, His dignity, His merit are all freely being employed for you. He is pleading the causes of your soul. Can you, will you, forget Him? Will you not now forget everything else and indulge the sweet memory of your faithful Lover, your dear Husband who is married to you in ties of everlasting wedlock? Come, I pray you, keep the memorial of this dear Friend!

And you have to remember a Friend who will return very soon. He only tells you to do this till He comes. He is coming back to us. His own words are, "Behold, I come quickly!" That is not quite the meaning of what He said—it was, "Behold, I am coming quickly!" He is on His way! His chariot is hurrying towards us. The axles of the wheels are hot with speed. He is coming as fast as He can. The long-suffering of God delays Him till sinners are brought in—till the full number of His elect shall be accomplished—but He is not delaying! He is not lingering! He is not slack, as some men count slackness. He is coming quickly. Will you not remember Him? Soon will His hand be on the door. Soon for you, at any rate, He may cry, "Arise, My love, My dove, My fair one, and come away." And soon He may be here among us and then we shall reign with Him forever and ever.

I charge my own heart to remember my dear Lord, tonight, and I pray you, Brothers and Sisters, let not the feebleness of my reminder deprive you, now, of the happiness of thinking much of Christ your Lord! Sit still and let all other thoughts be gone—think only of Him who loved you and died for you. Let your thoughts go back to Calvary, as you sing, in mournful accents—

Which once was bright as morn!' Oh, eyes full of tears! Oh, shoulders once beaten with the gory lash! Oh, hands once nailed to the cruel Cross! Oh, feet once fastened to the bitter tree! Soon shall we behold the Christ who loved us and died for us. Therefore let us observe this sacred feast in remembrance of Him.

II. But I must be more brief on my second point. The second meaning of the Lord's Supper is that it is AN EXHIBITION. "As often as you eat this bread, and drink this cup, you show the Lord's death till He comes." We are helped to remember it by the type, the emblem, the metaphor which is supplied to us by this supper. How is that? Is there any likeness to the death of Christ in this supper? I answer, there is a great likeness.

There is His broken body, represented by the bread which is broken and intended for use. His dear body was broken, marred, sadly marred, given over to the hands of death, laid in the sepulcher, wrapped about with fine linen, left there, as His enemies thought, never to rise again. In that broken bread, broken that even believing children may eat their morsel, you see Christ's body given up for His people's sake. But there stands a cup. It is full of the red juice of the grape. What does it mean? He, Himself, shall explain it—"This cup is the new testament in My blood, which is shed for you." Now, the shedding of blood is the great token of death. One would not long talk of killing without speaking of shedding blood. In fact, bloodshed usually means dying by a violent death, and so did Jesus die. They pierced His hands and His feet. A soldier thrust his lance into His side, and forthwith came there out blood and water. That stream of blood was the token that He really was dead. He has poured out from His veins His precious life to purchase His redeemed! The broken bread, the cluster pressed into the cup and leaving nothing but its blood-red juice—these two things symbolize Christ's death.

But, most of all, this is an exhibition of the two things separate—the bread and the cup. We have heard of some mixing the bread with the wine—that is not the Lord's Supper! We have heard of others partaking of the wafer, as they call it, and leaving the cup—this is not taking the Lord's Supper! They must be both there—the bread here, the wine cup there—because the separation of the blood from the flesh is the surest token of death! "The blood is the life thereof and if the blood is drained away, there is death. Therefore the blood is represented by the cup—and the flesh is represented by the bread. These two, separated, are the great token and emblem of Christ's death.

We show, display, exhibit, symbolize the death of our Lord at this Table in this fashion—we partake of both symbols—eating of the bread, drinking of the cup, the whole ministering to the support of our life. At this Table we say to all of you who do not know Christ—Christ's death is our life—and the remembrance of Christ's death is the food of our life! If any of you are spectators of the ordinance, this is the meaning of our little acted sermon—Christ has died. Christ's death is the support of our faith, the food of our souls, in token whereof we take this bread and this cup, and eat and drink. So this supper is a showing forth of Christ's death. How many here can say that Christ's death is their life? How many of you can say that you feed upon Him? Dear Friends, you must not come to the Table unless you can say it. But if you can, come and welcome! But if you cannot, oh, may the Lord teach you the lesson that is so necessary, the lesson that is so blessed, when it is once learned—that Christ on the Cross is the one hope of eternal glory!

You have thus had two meanings of the Lord's Supper. First—it is a memorial. And next—it is an exhibition.

III. The Lord's Supper is, next, A COMMUNION. We must have this brought out prominently, or we shall miss a great deal. We are at the Lord's Table—we eat of His bread, we drink out of His cup. This betokens friendship. When, in the East, a man has eaten of an Arab's salt, he is from that time under his protecting care. And he who has spiritually eaten of Christ's bread has come under Christ's protection—Christ will take care of Him. All feuds are ended. An eternal peace is established between the two. It was a tender parable in which Nathan spoke of a man who had a little ewe lamb which did eat of his own meat and drank of his own cup, and lay in his bosom. This is your privilege—to lie in Christ's bosom, to drink out of His cup and to eat of His bread! This is a very sweet fellowship! Enjoy it tonight to the fullest.

We go further than that, for we not only eat of His bread, but symbolically we feast upon Him. His flesh is meat, indeed, and His blood is drink, indeed! Can I really feed upon Christ? Really, yes! Carnally, no! There is no such thing as the carnal eating of His flesh and drinking of His blood—that were a horrible thing! That were to make a man a cannibal! But the spiritual feeding upon the Incarnate God—this is what we mean. He gives us His flesh to eat and we thus enter into a fellowship of the most intense and mysterious kind—not merely eating with Him, but eating Him—not merely receiving from Him, but receiving Him, Himself, to be the life of our hearts! May you get to that point tonight! I believe in the real Presence of Christ, but I do not believe in the carnal presence of the Roman Catholic. I believe in the real presence of the Believer, but that reality is none the less real because it is spiritual—and only spiritual men can discern it!

Now, Beloved, if we really come in the right spirit to this Table, when we have eaten the bread, it becomes part of us. When the wine is sipped, the juice of the grape enters into our constitution—we cannot separate it from ourselves. Such is our fellowship with Christ. He is one with us and we are one with Him. "Quis separabitV "Who shall separate us from the love of God?" We are one with Christ, partners with Him. All that He has is ours—all that we have is His. He gives Himself to us—we yield ourselves to Him. It is Christ and Co., only the little, "Co.," drops its name to be swallowed up in Him who is All in All! That is the meaning of the bread and the cup. We take Christ into ourselves, as He has taken us up into His greater Self.

But communion also means that we are one with each other. I wish that you would catch that thought. I am afraid there are some members of the Church, here, who have never realized their union with all the rest of the members. "We, being many, are one body in Christ, and everyone, members, one of another." One is our Master, even Christ, and all we are Brethren. There should be an intimate feeling of fellowship, a readiness to help and love one another. Rejoice with them that rejoice and weep with them that weep!

I cannot shake off from myself the idea that this makes up a large part of the meaning of the Lord's Supper, the communion of saints with each other as well as the communion of the saints with Christ. May we enjoy it tonight! For my part, I like to feel, when I come to the Table, that I am going to have communion, not only with this Church, large as it is, not merely with the members of one denomination, (I wish there were no denominations), not merely with the company of one body of Christians—would to God, there were but one body of Christians throughout the world!—but freely inviting all who belong to any part of the visible Church! I delight to think that at this Table, tonight, I shall have fellowship with the Brothers and Sisters in the Unites States, of all names, and sorts, and ages, and ranks. There cannot be two churches of Christ. There is but one Church, one Head and one body. Though there are some very naughty children in the Lord's family, they must not be kept without their supper—there is some other way of chastening them! And as long as there is true living communion between one Christian and another, where God has given the thing signified, I dare not keep back the sign. If He gives them to have fellowship with Christ, who am I that shall say, "You shall have not fellowship with Him"? I dare not say it!

The meaning of this Supper, then, is communion.

IV. But a fourth meaning of the Lord's Supper is A COVENANTING. Our Lord said to His disciples, "This cup is the new testament, or Covenant, in My blood." We do well to sing—

"Your body broken for my sake,

My bread from Hea ven shall be; Your testamental cup I take, And thus remember Thee.'

When we come to the Lord's Table, we must be careful that we there take Christ to be our God in Covenant. We take the one living God forever and ever. He gives Himself to us and we take Him, and we declare, "This God is our God forever and ever. He shall be our Guide even unto death." Do you understand that Covenant relationship, everyone of you? Do you know what you are doing when you take the piece of bread and eat it—and take the cup and drink of it? If you are truly a Believer in Christ, God is in Covenant with you through the body and the blood of Christ—and you recognize that blessed Truth of God—and take Him to be your God.

Now, the Covenant runs thus, "They shall be My people, and I will be their God." When, therefore, we come to this covenanting Table, we agree that we will be the Lord's people—therefore, not the devil's, not the world's, not our own— but the Lord's. When the Lord's people are chastened, we expect to be chastened with them. When the Lord's people are persecuted, we expect to be persecuted with them. We must take them for better or for worse, to have and to hold, and death, itself, must not part us from the Lord's people. That is the meaning of coming to this Table—recognizing that between you and God there is an agreement made that must not be broken, a Covenant ordered in all things and sure by which God becomes yours and you become His—so that you are forever to be one of those that belong wholly to Him.

Here, at the Communion Table, God, the Covenant God, seals His love to us. "Come here, My child," says the Lord, "I love you and I gave Myself for you, in token, whereof, put this bread into your mouth, to remind you of how I gave Myself for you. I love you so that you are Mine. I have called you by My name, in token, whereof, I remind you that I bought you with My precious blood. Therefore, let that sip of the juice of the vine go into your body to remind you that by My precious blood, which was shed for many, I have redeemed you from going down into the Pit." There are seals at that Table, new seals of the Covenant, new tokens, new love gifts from the Lord, to remind you of what He has done for you!

And you are to come here, tonight, to testify anew your love to God. Here you say, "My Master, let me eat with You." If any of you have lost your first love and have grown spiritually cold, the Savior stands at the door and knocks—and He says, "Open to Me"—and He also says that if we open to Him, He will come in and sup with us, and we with Him. He said that to the angel of the Church of the Laodiceans, the Church which was neither cold nor hot, which He threatened to spew out of His mouth. If you are only fit to make Christ sick, yet if you will open the door to Him, He will come and feast with you tonight—and all shall be well with you! He testifies His love to you. Come and testify yours to Him tonight. That is the meaning of this bread and this cup. Your covenant with death is broken, your agreement with Hell is annulled! And now you are in Covenant with God and He is in Covenant with you—even in an everlasting Covenant which shall never be broken!

V. Lastly, and very briefly, this supper signifies A THANKSGIVING. It is often called, by friends who love hard words, the "Eucharist." We have some friends who always carry a gold pencil, on purpose, to put down every word that nobody understands, that they may use it next Sunday in their sermon. Such people call the Lord's Supper the "Eucharist," which signifies "the giving of thanks." This is the thanksgiving service of the Church of God. It ought to be celebrated every Lord's Day. Every Sabbath should be a thanksgiving Sunday, for Jesus rose from the dead on the first day of the week and we ought to give thanks every time we celebrate His Resurrection. Certainly we should do so when we celebrate His death! What are we going to do tonight by way of thanksgiving?

Well, we are coming to a festival, not a funeral! The choice festival of the Jewish faith was the Passover. The Lord's Supper takes its place with higher joys! We come to this feast to testify our joy in Christ. There is bread, but there is also wine upon the table. This is to show that it is a festival for joy and delight. And you cannot praise Christ better and give thanks to Him better than by rejoicing in Him! Praise Him by your grateful joy! I think that we should always come to the Lord's Table with a feeling of deep reverence, but that reverence should never tend to bondage. We want you not to come here quivering and shaking, as if you were slaves that came to eat a morsel of your master's bread, under fear of the lash. No, no! Come, children! Come, beloved ones of the Lord! Come, table companions of Christ, and sit at the festival He has prepared and let your joy be full of thanksgiving!

We come to the Table, next, actually to praise the Lord for giving Christ to us. When our Lord broke the bread, He gave thanks. So shall we tonight. Come, Beloved, to thankfully praise the Father for the gift of Christ. And as you take the bread into your mouth, say in your heart, "Bless the Lord!" And as you drink of the cup, say in your spirit, "Blessed be His holy name! Blessed be the Father for His eternal love to us! Blessed be Jesus for His love which has saved us to know all these precious things!"

One way in which we show our thanks to Christ is that we receive with gratitude the emblems of His death. Each one who communes with us will receive the bread and eat it, and take the cup and drink it. We do not hold it up and look at it. We do not kneel down and pay it homage—we receive it. We have done so now these many years. How long is it since we began this holy feast? Well, with some of us, it is over 40 years since our first communion, and we do not need any better food. We desire to keep in memory the same Christ, to feed upon the same doctrine of the Incarnation and atoning Sacrifice. And if we should be spared, Beloved, another 40 years, which is far from likely, we shall have a sweeter tooth for Christ even than we have now! He will be more dear to us, more precious, more delightsome, even, than He is tonight! So we come to the Table to show our gratitude by receiving and receiving again.

Let me whisper in your ears, when this communion is over and you shall leave this Table, "Pray, Beloved, that you may go away in the same spirit as your Lord and Master did when, after rising from supper, He went out to the Garden, not there to have a sweet hour of lonely communion with God, but there to sweat, as it were, great drops of blood falling to the ground! He went there to be arrested, to be hurried off to the bar of Annas, and Caiaphas, and Pilate, and Herod, and the rest of them. He went there, in fact to die! But He went away singing." So I want you to go away from this communion singing praises to God!

As my dear Brother said in prayer, you must have your Gethsemanes, your Golgothas—but I want you to go away from this Table singing! Whatever comes, high or low, bright or dark, Heaven or another age in this dark wilderness, Brothers and Sisters, let us sing! We often say, "Let us pray," but tonight, at the Table, I say, "Let us sing!" Let us sing unto the Lord because of His great gift to us, which we, tonight, remember, and set forth, and commune with, and Covenant with! Let us sing unto the Lord as long as we live, for we can never sufficiently praise Him for all that He has done for us—

Thus I have explained all about the Lord's Supper. Do you know anything about it? Some of you are going away. You are going away! Yes, and the day shall come when you will not have anywhere to go! When the great marriage supper is spread and the feast of the gracious shall be held, and the whole universe shall be gathered, oh, where will you go? You will not be allowed to linger at the door, neither will you go home to wait till others shall return from the festival. You must be driven from God's Presence if you come not by faith in Christ to that great feast! The fiery swords of the angel guards shall be unsheathed and they shall pursue you through the blackness of eternal darkness, down to infinite despair! The Lord have mercy upon you, tonight, that He may have mercy upon you in that day, for Jesus' sake! Amen.