All right, if you have your Bibles, we'll be in 1 Corinthians 11 tonight. 1 Corinthians 11 for much of our text. Am I on? I'm on, right? Okay, I can't tell which mic I'm on. As you get older, there's weird things that happen to you. I mean, it's just crazy. Some days I can hear fine, and some days I feel like I have no hearing at all. I'm only like 43. Am I 42 or 43? I'll be 43. I don't even know how old I am anymore. So, it happens. Anyway, so, yeah, okay, I'm not sure how I got there. Oh, because like everything sounds weird right now, but I think it's just in my head because it's one of those wonderful days. So, everybody who understands that, say amen. Amen. All right, got a bunch of y'all do and a bunch of y'all are still too young for that. All right, so, 1 Corinthians 11, stand with me. Last week, or a couple weeks ago, as we were looking through and beginning to study the Lord's Supper, we read the accounts in Matthew, Mark, and in Luke. Tonight, we're going to jump to 1 Corinthians and look at what Paul writes about the Lord's Supper. And so, as you begin reading it, it says there, verse 23, it says, And then you stop there and you just kind of think we have the accounts in Matthew of a first-hand account of what happened at the Lord's Supper. Matthew's there. They've got Mark and Luke and they're kind of retelling what the Holy Spirit has led them to say but based on the accounts of Peter and Mark's estimate as Mark wrote and then as Luke writes, it's much from what he would have got from Paul, but Paul here is saying, look, I am writing to you about the Lord's Supper, what God revealed to me, right? So we think about the three years where he's called away into the Arabian desert, and he is tall. He has like Bible college 101, and Christ is there teaching him, right? That's what it says, for I have received of the Lord that which I've delivered also unto you. And again, you find in Galatians that he was there called away into that desert where he studied for about three years, with God, which is an incredible thing. So this account is not the retelling of the account that the apostles sat through, those 11 on the night before Christ was taken. This is an oral account from Jesus Christ given to Paul, which is just incredible to think about the account as we think of it here in 1 Corinthians 11. So this is what it says. It says that the Lord Jesus, the same night in which he was betrayed, took bread. And when he had given thanks, he break it and said, take eat. This is my body, which is broken for you. This do in remembrance of me. After the same manner also, he took the cup. When he adds up saying this cup is the New Testament in my blood, this do ye as often as you drink in remembrance of me. For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you do show the Lord's death till he come. Wherefore, whosoever shall eat this bread and drink. This cup of the Lord unworthily shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread and drink of that cup. For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord's body. For this cause, many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep. For if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged. But when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world. Wherefore, my brethren, when ye come together to eat, wherefore, my brethren, when ye come together to eat, tarry one for another. And if any man hunger, let him eat at home, that ye come not together unto condemnation, and the rest I will set in order when I come. Let's pray. Father, I thank you for all that you preserved for us. As we think about the singing of the Lord's Supper, Lord, you have preserved it from many angles and many different ways because you knew that we would have many questions, Lord God. And I thank you just for preempting those and giving us your word so we can know exactly that which you'd have for us. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. All right, so we are in systematic theology. We're looking at ordinances. Specifically, we're looking at the Lord's Supper, and we know the Lord's Supper goes by several different names. It goes by the Lord's Supper, communion, the Lord's Table. You go to 1 Corinthians 10, 16, and it's referred to as breaking in bread, as well as perhaps in Acts 2, though I think it's a little more ambiguous there, whether that's speaking of the Lord's Supper or people actually fellowshipping. And then in other places you find different, those are the main things, and you find them in different varieties throughout the New Testament. And so, just a note, right, that the word Eucharist would be like the Catholic term. It's also the term that's always used in legal terms. Why? Because they like to use Latin and it sounds fancy, right? So, if I say Eucharist, it's because I've read it in brief after brief after brief, studying like religious freedom types of things, so often that's the word that comes to mind. Just like nativity, they use the word Kretsch, and that comes to mind very often, and the first time I said that to my wife, she's like, what are you talking about? It's just a lot of legal briefs, and that's what they write. So that's neither here nor there. If I start using those terms, that's why, because I've read it in too many legal briefs at this point in my life. And so we're thinking about this thing, we looked at baptism, now we're looking at the Lord's Supper, and it's something that has a lot of questions drawn to it because there are a lot of opinions on it, and there's a lot of religious beliefs about it, and there's a lot of things that people don't understand, and a lot of people want to make assumptions, and it's one of those things where when you start talking about it, people say, I think, right? But we're not looking at the what I think is, we're looking at what the Bible says so we can know the truth. And so, to know the truth, we must be able to comprehend it, And so we step back and we look at what others believe. Why? Because if I know what I believe, I need to be able to defend my belief. And when somebody else brings me their position, I can say, look, this is why I believe what I believe. And I know why they're wrong because I put substantial thought into it. So we began looking last week and we're just going to, a couple of weeks ago, it's been a couple of weeks. If you want more detail, go back to the service on November the 6th and watch it online. There's three major schools of thought. Well, there's four major schools of thought. There's what we believe, but we're looking at the three others that aren't what we believe so that we can have some comparison, right? The Roman Catholics believe in what we would call transubstantiation. They believe that when the wine and the bread is brought and the priest prays over it, at that point, it becomes the body and blood of Jesus Christ. And so, It was fascinating, last time after service, I was talking to Brother Joel. I didn't realize he had been like an altar boy. And he was there for a lot of this as, from his perspective, as he would prepare it for the priest and he'd get it, or for the priest, yeah, for the priest and they'd get it ready and take care of it and cleaning up. And so I had a very fascinating conversation after the last time we talked about it. But he said, yeah, we absolutely believed that it becomes the body and blood of Jesus Christ. Within Catholicism, they believe that when they, the Catholic partakes of that, that Christ unites with the participant from his spirituality into the human's mortality, I suppose, into humanity, right? And so there's this bonding of Christ with the flesh that happens in the belief of the Catholic. And so, That's one way or one set of beliefs. The Lutheran Church believes in something called consubstantiation, and it's kind of like this middle ground. They believe that because God is omnipresent, he is within the Lord's Supper, and so when a person takes of that, a very similar thing happens, and the person again is united, the physical with the spiritual with Christ in some degree. The Calvinist believes not that there's consubstantiation or transubstantiation. They believe that the bread and the wine are symbolic, but they also believe that they are symbolic instruments through which one receives Jesus Christ. Right? So, Lutherans, Calvinists, as well as Catholics, all believe that this thing of the Lord's Supper plays a role in salvation. And, you know, it's kind of like Baptists, different Baptists will kind of believe different things, you know what I mean? If we have, like, Independent Baptists versus Southern Baptists versus Free Will Baptists versus all the other Baptists, there's differentiations Each one of these within the Catholics or within the Lutherans or Calvinists, they have a varying level of belief, it seems like, about whether a complete salvation is offered through it or some part of salvation is made available through it. And so, any way you look at it, though, they believe that salvation in some regard or another is received with the Lord's Supper. We think of that because now, as you talk to people throughout life, they likely are going to bring up different things and you have this question, right? Somebody's like, so what do you believe about the Lord's Supper? And they're going to say, well, this is what I believe. Well, we need to be able to defend that. And the only way to defend that is to know what they believe and know what the Bible says so that we can make logical arguments against it. But more than that, we just need to know what we believe. Why am I a Baptist? Why do I believe in the Lord's Supper like we believe in it? So that's what we're looking at. And the way we are working is our first point, the first thing we've been studying is the purpose of the Lord's Supper. If we can know the reason behind it, it'll start to inform our minds to something about what is going on and what is the truth of the Lord's Supper. So last week, or a couple weeks ago again, we began with the first thing was a notification that Jesus' blood matters, right? So, and in Matthew and Mark, we saw there is very similar language. Matthew 26-28 says, So, Matthew and Mark's accounts, they are very similar. No, it's not plagiarism. It is quite simply a stress on the importance of what God is trying to teach in these two very similar accounts, right? It's that idea of repetition kind of builds something. And so God is saying, the first thing I want you to know, right, the first thing I am revealing, I am revealing to you that there is great importance on the Lord's Supper. And the first thing you need to know is that it is my blood that is the New Testament, which is shed for many. And so we start to see that Jesus is letting his disciples know that it is his blood that is the only way to salvation. While it has always been the case, when he dies, it will no longer become necessary to look to the sacrifices that the Levitical priests were offering, now the salvation will be complete, there will be no more sacrifices necessary, and Jesus is basically saying, my blood's gonna settle it all. So we're taking communion for the first part, for the first reason, for the first purpose, so that we understand that there is a stress in our beliefs on the blood of Jesus Christ. His death was necessary. His blood was shed so that we could have salvation. So, we think about Old Testament, God instituted the original testament, the Old Testament of obedience through sacrifices, again, which indicated faith. And now, once Jesus Christ died, the New Testament is sealed by faith, but indicated by obedience. Right? So you see that it's by faith in either case, but one was obedience pointed to faith. Now my faith is lived through obedience. And so we see two very similar things, but that's what Jesus is making known to us. It is his blood and his blood, our faith in his blood is what brings salvation. And so that's the first purpose we saw. The second was to remember all that he did in his life. Luke 22, 19, through this doctrine of progressive revelation, we see not only is it just the blood that matters, in Luke 22, verse 19, the next passage on the Lord's Supper, it says this, And he took bread, and gave thanks, and break it, and gave it unto them, saying, This is my body, which is given for you, this do in remembrance of me. So now we see that it's not just the blood that matters, it's his life. He says, do this in remembrance of me. Remember me. Remember who I am. Remember that I came. Remember that I lived. Remember how I lived. Remember my sinlessness. Remember my helping people. Remember my love. Remember my kindness. Remember everything about my life because he is the perfect example for us. And so we see the second purpose, the second reason we engage in the Lord's Supper is to remember His life. We have that solemn moment and we're sitting there and we're partaking of the Lord's Supper and it's all about Him. We're remembering His blood sacrifice and we're remembering the life that He lived as we seek to draw closer to Him. Tonight, we move on to the third thing, and that's to remember his sacrifice. And that's what we see revealed in 1 Corinthians, where we found our text tonight. Again, Paul's saying, look, I received this from the Lord. Perhaps he received more details than what the apostles did. Perhaps he was just more ready to absorb it because the apostles were in the moment and Christ was about to be taken from them, and there was a lot going on there. And More than anything, we know it's just the leading of the Holy Spirit. This is how he had them to write, one after another. In this thing of progressive revelation, we see a little more as we get to the book of 1 Corinthians. And in chapter 11, we see a repetition of the other two, right? Verse 25 says, again, and we had take, when he had stopped saying, this cup is the new test of my blood. So we see that rehashed. And then he says, this do as often as you drink in remembrance of me. And so we see twice, We see a third time on the idea of the blood. And we see a second time now on the idea of remembering his life. But now in verse 26, it gives us a little more. It says, for as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you do show the Lord's death. till he come." So, we see the third purpose is to remember the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. You read through this and it says the purpose is to show or shew, s-h-e-w, and it comes from the Greek katalēgōl and it means to proclaim or promulgate, to declare, preach, show, speak, or teach. And so it's to really make known, right? It's to make you understand, to make you to remember, to bring back to mind in a very vivid, a very real way that Christ died for us. the Lord's Supper is something that is meant to proclaim his death, right? And we know that very logically, perhaps from having engaged in it, right? It's the bread and the wine, and the wine is symbolic of the blood. And so there's just a wonderful picture there, but we're told here very specifically, it's to focus on his death. So Jesus's death, again, is what makes life possible for us, right? If he had not died, we had not had a sacrifice for our sins. His life showed what life is like in God, and his death showed that we can have it, right? His death made it possible. His death made it available for us to be like him. It's because of his death that we can have our sins taken away. It's because of his death that we can conquer sin in our life. And it's because of his death that we can have eternal life. And so we see these three reasons articulated through what God is saying, right? Each of these are, and he said. So Christ is saying, I want you to partake of the Lord's supper for three reasons. One is to remember my blood. Two is to remember my life. And three kind of sounds like number one, right? I want you to remember my death. But he categorizes them as three different things because in the blood, we see the New Testament. In his life, we see an example to live. And in his death, we see the sacrifice that he made. And so we understand that there's these three things that he wants us to remember. And so that leads us to a comparison with where the Roman Catholics are, with where the Lutherans are, with the Calvinists, where others are. And so we're looking at what is a correct understanding of the Lord's Supper. What is the thing that we are to understand in it? If the declared purposes of Christ are what they are, then they stand in complete opposition to transubstantiation, consubstantiation, and Calvinism, right? So if Christ says the purpose of the Lord's Supper is for you to remember my blood, remember my life, and remember my death, that's not the same as saying the purpose of the Lord's Supper is to get saved, right? I mean, those are two distinct purposes. One is a memory, the other is an action. And so Jesus's literal words, which is what they take, they take part of Jesus's literal words, right? He says, take ye, this is my body. Drink, this is my blood. And they say, well, because of that, we are literally taking of his body and his blood. But Jesus goes on to say it's symbolic. And they ignore the rest of his little words, right? His literal words, take eat because I want you to do this in remembrance of me. Drink of this because it is a picture of the New Testament on my blood, right? He explains what it is, but to get to transubstantiation or consubstantiation or even the Calvinist view of it, you have to do away with part of what Christ is saying. But they don't do that. They just say we're taking of his body and his blood and we're eating it and it's going to make us saved. We're to take these items, though, as we find, not because they are the literal giving of Christ himself anew to us, as they might believe, but they are symbols to stand as a time of reminder of the greatness and gravity of what Jesus Christ did by coming to this earth, giving his blood for us, and dying on the cross. That's the truth of what we find in the Lord's Supper. It is a reminder, it's symbolic, so that we focus on the greatness of our God, we focus on the wonder of his life, we focus on his death, and we focus on his blood. But those who believe in these other things, this transubstantiation, consubstantiation, or Calvinism, they believe that it actually is an action that brings them to salvation. If they will take the bread and pray sufficiently over it, they ingest it, they will be saved. But now you think about that and it conflicts with much of the rest of this text. Verse 27 says, wherefore, whosoever shall eat this bread and drink this cup of the Lord unworthily shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. So Paul tells us that God revealed to him that if a person takes of the Lord's supper and he does so unworthily, they are guilty of this sin. They're guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. They have violated God. Again, what do these other groups believe? They believe in this thing of transubstantiation, which means that the elements become the body and blood, or consubstantiation, God's in the body and blood, or they believe that they are an active part in salvation. Now, if you were to partake of the Lord's Supper and it was to save you, how could you ever eat or drink unworthily of the Lord's Supper? Right, because it does save you, it removes sin. That's their belief. They believe that as I take it, it saves me. If it saves me, it is pardoning me of my sins. Well, if that is the case, if I took it, I could never have a violation based on verse 27, which says that you can eat and drink unworthily and be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. So there's just conflict in the plain language of the Bible, right? So you start to see that it can't be what they are saying. It cannot be that there's a literal infusion of Christ into our mortal souls upon the taking of the Lord's Supper. His blood is perfect, and it would act as an agent of righteousness, and it would change us, and it would render this verse an act of mental gymnastics. Rather, it's better to compare the Lord's Supper to David and his men when they were hungry and they were running from Saul and they went to the tabernacle there and they needed bread. And they went to the priest and they said, we would like some bread. And the priest said, okay, it's only for those who have been clean and kept from women a certain amount of time. And David says, that's us. We're all living righteously. We haven't engaged in these certain acts. We're good right now. And so he says, okay, you can take of something that is holy, but it was just a symbolic holiness, right? It wasn't going to physically change within them. And it was something that represented holiness and the temple there. And so the Lord's Supper is akin to that, I would say. It's much more akin to that than it would be in something that we find in transubstantiation. The Lord's Supper is a, great solemn assembly whereby we as a church gather and we focus on the wonderful works of Christ and it's to be taken seriously because of what it represents. And in the Lord's Supper, there is an expectation that those who are taking this are understanding it's a symbol of what He has done, and so we engage it in purity, and that is how we don't violate this thing of eating and drinking unworthily. We're to be in a place to where we are doing the other things that we are supposed to do, save members of the church, baptize, living righteous, holy lives, and we'll get to those things in a little while. Just from a high-level view, as we start to compare ourselves with other religions versus what the Bible says, does that make sense? So I'll stop here and say, does anybody have any questions? I know transubstantiation is kind of a confusing thing, but at the same time, it's something a whole lot of people believe. I tried to articulate it clearly and why we can show in the Bible that we don't believe in that. So, anybody have any questions or comments on any of that? Gonna be one of those nights, huh? I don't like the quiet nights. All right, very good. That or I'm just explaining it perfectly. So that, well, I'll just assume that. Very good. All right, so that's where we stand. The reason that we take of it, the correct understanding, the purpose of it is a symbolic time of identifying with Christ, right? It's us drawing closer to him, communing with him as we focus on his life, his death, and his blood. And so that's the purpose of the Lord's Supper. Second thing we look at are the participants. the participants. All right, so the purpose of the ordinance largely puts things into perspective for us as to what's going on, right? If the purpose is an identification and a remembering of what Christ has done for our lives, just very logically, it kind of lays out who is to take it. You don't have to put a lot of deeper thought into it, though we are going to. You don't have to because who would want to identify with Christ? Those who are His. So it's pretty cut and dry about who should take it. It's those who are His. But at the same time, these assumptions, God knew people would challenge, so He gave us a lot more on them. And so we'll begin to look at those at this time. The first thing we see in regards to the participants in the Lord's Supper, it's for those who are saved and baptized. We think about the Lord's Supper, the first one that was taken, it was there with the 11 faithful apostles, and we'll get to Judas getting out there in a little bit. But from this fact, we can begin to infer that the participants were godly, right? We got the 11 apostles, we're going to assume that they were saved godly men. So we have kind of this foundation. God started the church, Christ started the church through them. But we have more than this inference to go on. We look to Acts chapter 2, and we are there at the time of Pentecost, and in verses 41 and 42 it says, And so, Here we have the basic elements of a church. The church is made up of those who receive God's word, that is those who are saved, right? So those who received his word and then those who were baptized and those who were baptized were then added to the church. And so we see the foundation of a church, the building of a church, it's those who are saved and who are baptized can then be brought into the membership of the church. As way of review, a prerequisite for membership is again, salvation and baptism, but baptism is only baptism when a person is saved first and then is baptized in a church of right doctrine and full immersion. And so a person who has engaged in salvation in that form of baptism can be added to the church. And it is that group of people, people in the same place who have done that, that join together and they form the church. And that church then is a unified assembly of local believers and they begin fulfilling what God wants. Why am I rehearsing all of that? Because when we go to 1 Corinthians and we start reading the account that Paul is writing there, he is telling the church there something. Right? Who does he write to in 1 Corinthians or in the book of Corinthians? He writes to the church that is at Corinth. And so we see that it's a saved and baptized group of believers that have gathered together. And Paul says again there in verses 27 and 28, Wherefore, whosoever shall eat this bread and drink this cup of the Lord unworthily shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread and drink of that cup." So as Paul's writing this to the local church, we understand that he is speaking to people who are saved and baptized, right? It's written to a local church, so they are saved and they are baptized. And if all we had in Matthew, Mark, and Luke's accounts, we may question, right? If we just knew that it was just the apostles there, we may just think, well, that was just the first happening. We don't really know what's supposed to happen after this. But now, it's been a while, it's been a few years, and Paul starts writing to the church at Corinth, and he's writing to a group of people that we know would form a church appropriately under Acts 2, and those group of people that he would be writing to would be to the church, those who are saved and baptized members of that body. And so it's the church that comes together and partakes in the Lord's Supper. Communion is meant to be a corporate reflection on what Christ has done for those who are a part of his church. If someone is not saved and or has not been baptized, then they should not take of the Lord's Supper. because they would not be part of the church. Because an unsaved person has no reason to remember what Christ has done for them, and a person that is not scripturally baptized has not followed the Lord in the first ordinance that he commanded, and so should not engage in partaking of this thing of the Lord's Supper because they have not appropriately identified with Christ. They have not taken the very next step that they know biblically they are supposed to take. They have fallen short of what God has requested next of them in their lives, and so they should not be taking of the Lord's Supper. The first thing we know about participants is that they are to be saved and baptized individuals. Does anybody have any questions about that? All right. Next thing is they're supposed to be members, members within the local church. This is an issue that people have many different thoughts on, many different philosophies about, many different beliefs on. It's a question that, you know, I'll I apply to be a pastor here, right? I don't know how that goes. Did I apply? How did that work? Anyway, I got put in contact with Brother Ard and submitted my resume and this, that, and the other. And one of the questions at some point is, okay, in regards to the Lord's Supper, are you open, closed, or close? Right? Like, why? Because it matters. What does the Bible say? And maybe you're sitting there, and you're like, I have no idea what that means. So we'll just give a brief highlight, and then we'll come back to it in a little bit. Open communion is where you allow anybody in the church to take of the Lord's Supper, right? We have the Lord's Supper tonight, and we bless it, we pray over it, we pass it out, and anybody who's here can take of it. Different thoughts on that. Some is just anybody who wants to take of it. And some is anyone who says they're saved. And you know, it can be as open as you want it to be, right? Just anybody you want to allow to take it can take it. And then you have close, which would be, okay, we have the Lord's Supper here and there are individuals from another church of like doctrine and they're here. And some would say, OK, well, they can take of it, right? This thing of close, it can have degrees, I suppose, as well. Some people may say, well, it's any church of similar doctrine can take of it. Or some would say, well, it's just got to be another independent fundamental Baptist church can take of it. And so that's the idea of close. They would be here. They would be in a service. We're holding it. And they would say, I'd like to identify with you all in this, and I'll partake of it. That's the idea of close. Closed is, it is for our church. members of our church and members of our church only. And so, you see three levels of it. And the way that closed communion can be had can be had in different ways as well. Some people hold closed communion and they ask everybody to leave except for those who are members of the church. And so, all the children who are not saved and baptized yet, they'll be excused to the back. Every member who is or everyone who is not a member is asked to leave. Oftentimes they will hold it on like a Tuesday night or a Friday morning or sometime when other people wouldn't just naturally show up and they keep it to just the church body. And then there's the type of clothes that we engage in and that's Closed, but I guess not exclusive, right? So it's for our members, but I don't ask people to leave, because the Bible says, let a man judge himself, let a man examine himself. And so we'll get to all of that. But if you're wondering what I'm talking about, in a nutshell, that's what it is. We have open, close, and closed. And so we are closed. If you have any question about that, we can discuss that as we go. So that's what we're looking at as we look at membership within the local church that's going to lead to that issue. So some may argue, well, Paul wrote to the church at Corinth, but what about the other believers that were there, right? He's writing to Corinth saying, look, you're messing communion up, this is what you need to do. And I guess they got a visiting missionary, they have another person stopping through, you know, somebody from the church of Antioch stopping by the church of Corinth, and they're like, hey, I want to take the Lord's Supper today. That's kind of the issue going on here. And so our first clue, though, is found, I guess, in 1 Corinthians 1 and verses 1 and 2. And there it says this, it says, Okay, so who's he writing to? The church that is in Corinth. Well, when you're writing to a church, who are you writing to? You're writing to the members of that church, right? There may be visitors there, but they're not part of that church, right? There may be a traveling evangelist there, but they're not part of that church. There may be people who are passing through on vacation, but they're not part of that church. That church is the called out assembly of believers who are members there together. They're the ones that are called into that body of Christ. And so that's who Paul is writing to. He's writing to people that he would expect to be there. Those that he would expect to be the members. That's who he was specifically addressing. And then he goes on in chapter 11 and starts telling exactly what he expects of a person or a church engaging in the Lord's Supper. And so we see that. But what about the Last Supper? Or I guess the First Lord's Supper, right? And so people want to have different thoughts about this. Was Judas there or not? Because if Judas was there, then the whole thing's blown up, right? If Judas is there, then we have an unsaved individual there. And though God or Christ said he was part of the church when he founded it, Christ knew who he was, right? He knew he was a liar and a thief. He knew he was the one who would betray him. So how do we know that Judas wasn't there? Was he there or was he not there? And we can know that he wasn't there as we kind of synthesize verses in the Bible. And I know I've gone over this each time we have the Lord's Supper, but it's always good to think about. So Mark chapter 14 and Luke chapter 13. And these two dovetail together, right? They don't overlap. So turn to them both if you would. Mark chapter 14 and Luke chapter 13. And we see kind of a parenthetical in John that fits beautifully within Mark. So Mark in chapter 14, verse 17 through 20 says this, And in the evening he cometh with the twelve, and as they sat and did eat, Jesus said, Verily I say unto you, One of you which eateth with me shall betray me. And they began to be sorrowful, and to say unto him one by one, Is it I? And another said, Is it I? And he answered and said unto them, It is the one of the twelve that dippeth with me in the dish. All right, so who is it? It's the one that dips with him in the dish. We'll turn to John chapter 13. John 13, verse 27. It says, and after the sop, right, the thing that's dipped in the dish, that's the sop. And after the sop, Satan entered into him, then said Jesus unto him, that thou doest, do quickly. Now, no man at the table knew for what intent he spake this unto him. For some of them thought because Judas had the bag that Jesus had said unto him by those things that we have need of against the feast or that he should give something to the poor. But look at verse 30. And it was night, all right? So Mark chapter 14, verse 20, it's the one of them that dippeth with me in the dish. Luke, or John chapter 13, 27, he receives a sop. Jesus says, what you're going to do, do quickly. Verse 30, having received the sop, he immediately went out. He's gone. Then we go back to Mark in chapter 14, picking up in verse 22, and it says, and as they did eat, Jesus took the bread and blessed it and break it and gave it to them and said, take ye, this is my body, right? And he goes on to give the Lord's Supper. So we see now that Judas is not there during the Lord's Supper, right? He's there at the beginning part of the Last Supper. They have the Passover meal together, but as Jesus then starts to shift things from the Last Supper to this idea of the Lord's Supper communion, you see that he excludes Judas. Judas is gone. So, Judas was welcomed by Jesus, right? Judas is fed by Jesus. Judas is allowed to be there at dinner, and he could certainly learn from Jesus, but before communion, before the Lord's Supper, Judas was excused. It was just a time for those who were true servants, those who were members of his body. And so in 1 Corinthians, we see this kind of followed up with a more clear example. There, Paul is writing again to the local church, to the people at Corinth, and is instructing them on many things, and one of the things is the errors in how they are viewing and partaking in the Lord's Supper. And verse 20 through 22, it says, And when ye come together into one place, this is not to eat the Lord's supper. For in eating, every one taketh before other his own supper, and one is hungry, and another is drunken. What have ye not houses to eat in and to drink in? Or despise ye the church of God, and shame them that have not? What shall I say to you? Shall I praise you in this? I praise you not. Now we see not only is Paul addressing the church of Corinth and talking to them specifically about it, it's the church that has an irreverent manner about it, right? So you dig even deeper now into just the membership and he says, look, it's y'all, right? He's picking some people out. He says, a couple of you, a few of you over there are being a little bit irreverent about it. Well, who would that be? That would be the members of the church. Right? I mean, you're not calling out people passing through. He doesn't have any idea what they're doing. Imagine the time that it takes to get information at this period of the world. It's not happening quickly. It's not like somebody called up Paul and was like, hey, man, we got a situation over here. Brother Doug and Brother Ard, they're... They're doing this weird thing in the Lord's Supper. I mean, it just don't even make sense, okay? And then, you know, Paul called him up and was like, hey guys, you guys aren't even part of that church. You guys are fools. Get out of there, right? No, it wasn't like that. It was like a long drawn-out thing. It would have taken somebody getting to him or getting a message to him and he knows he's addressing the church and he sends a letter to... When he wanted to address a person, he did. I mean, just look at Philemon. He said, I'm gonna let you have it now. I want my boy back. You need to leave him alone. If you don't, we're gonna have a problem. You know you owe me, right? So he was more than willing to address a person, but he doesn't do that here. He addresses a church because there is an issue within the church. All right, what questions do I have about this, about the need to be a member to take of the Lord's Supper, a member of this church or whatever church you're a part of before you take of the Lord's Supper? I know perhaps I didn't articulate that the most clearly. I hope I did, but what questions may you have? Okay. Yeah, Brother Michael. You know, is that something you can go to another fundamental Baptist church and partake or you just have must be at your local church before you can? I believe it's completely your local church. So and again, we like you haven't had like, you know, for a year or so. No, I get it. But we prioritize what's important. You know what I mean? Like if it's important to you, it's time to say, hey, I need a vacation. I got to take a few days here or there. You know what I mean? It's it's there's a lot of things in Christianity that are like this. If we really prioritize God the way that we say that we do, Sometimes it takes some sacrifice, right? You've got to call work and tell them you need a day off, you've got to cut back on this, that, or the other, and it's hard, but look at the things we're willing to sacrifice for work, and look at the things we're willing to sacrifice for family, but that's God. Are we willing to sacrifice a day or two of travel and say, listen, okay, I've got to maybe buy an extra plane ticket, that costs some money. Yeah, but the Christian life is supposed to be about sacrifice. It's about giving to our God and giving to others. It's a great question, but I believe the sacrifice is to be made so that we can do it in our local church the way that God wants. Andrew. What is the reason for the different stances on how to hold a closed communion, and why do we do it the way we do it? Well, so the different reasons for closed community, you're talking again about everybody being excluded or holding it a different way versus allowing people in. Well, the two reasons would be this. One, you exclude everybody because you have the picture of Jesus Christ and Judas, and Judas physically gets up and leaves. Right? And so you can see that perspective of it. But when you go to 1 Corinthians in chapter 11, it tells us that we are not the judge, right? It says, for if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged. But when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world. But who's he saying that to? He's saying that to the people that are supposed to be examining ourselves. It's saying, you as the pastor, you're not supposed to do this. You're supposed to preach the word. You're supposed to tell the people exactly what's going on. but it's not up to you. Let a man examine himself. That doesn't say I as the pastor can do that, right? Somebody could come in here and say, well, I'm a member of the universal church, and I'm a member of this church because I'm a member of the universal church, and while that's a bunch of hogwash, it doesn't say I'm supposed to judge them. It says God will judge them, right? For this cause, many are weak and sickly among you. And so God's doing the judging here. God's doing the chastising here. God's doing the very specific that a person needs, and it excludes the pastor, it excludes the church from doing this, which is why we do it the way we do. We tell people not to eat it, because Judas didn't eat it, but it doesn't say here that you should exclude everybody that's there. It says that those who are there should not do it, and they need to make that decision for themselves. Does that make sense? It's a good question. All right, other questions? Ms. Carmen. Yes, this is the first time I hear the closed and open, but in some occasions, like when we visit a friend, and probably, I don't know if the church has the open, but But I'm understanding now, like, it's up to me to partake of the Lord's Supper. It's my decision. Because they're open, they're offering it to us, right? Sure. Yeah, I mean, a church may allow you to do it, but we need to do what the Bible says. So it's up to me. Yes, always. And it's up to that pastor to teach it and preach it right. But sometimes shortcuts are taken and we just wanna look fully at what the Bible says. And I think as we look through all the verses, that's the clearest example we get everything we see, we can point to it was closed, it wasn't open. All right, anyone else?