Read 1 Corinthians 11:20-34
We ought to have true and right views of the Lord’s Supper. It is a sacred ordinance. It leads us to think of the death of our dearest Friend, and we are reverent always in the presence of death or when thinking of death. It is the death of the Son of God of which this memorial leads us to think, and that was the most wonderful death that ever took place on this earth. When a king dies the whole land stands uncovered; what should be our emotion when God’s Son bows His head and dies: The object of this death ought to add to its sacredness in our sight. He died for us, to save us.
To the Christians St. Paul wrote, “When therefore ye assemble yourselves together, it is not possible to eat the Lord’s Supper.” Why? Because of the spirit in which they met together. There were dissensions and strifes among them. Besides, there was no reverence in their meeting. They did not understand the true meaning of the Lord’s Supper. They had no thought of its sacredness. They met for eating and drinking, as if it were a revel they were keeping rather than a solemn act of worship. It was impossible to eat the Lord’s Supper in such a way as that. We have no such temptation in these days. Everywhere this sacrament is invested with sacredness and is observed reverently — at least as to form. Still, even this wild abuse is not without its lessons for us. We can truly receive the Lord’s Supper only when we take it with hearts in full accord with its holy meaning. Strife and bitterness unfit us for it. We ought to have the love the one for the other, without resentment, without anger, without jealousy or envy. The rich and the poor meet together at the Lord’s table, and it ought to be indeed as brethren. The highest and the lowest in earthly position sit here side by side, and there should be the sweetest accord of spirit. Before God they are one. Without any of the wild orgies that dishonoured the Lord’s Supper at Corinth, it is yet possible, even with all our decorousness, to make it a mockery. If we make it only an empty form, without love, without faith, without a discerning of the Lord’s body, without any true dependence upon the atonement of Christ, without any spiritual receiving of the things represented in the sacred emblems, is our receiving of it anything that pleases God? Is it possible for us, when we come together thus, to eat the Lord’s Supper?
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