I said, I'll come up sometime and preach if you'd like for me to preach. I'll take a Sunday off here, come up and preach, and, you know, we can talk some more, but I have no leadership at this point to make a change. He said, good, I'll call you back. So they had this time when they're gonna have dinner on the ground, you know, and all that. He said, this is a Sunday, we want you to come. I said, okay. So we went up there, Waverly and I, and our children were little then. And so after the service, you know, that people wanted to talk to me, and I was, Waverly and I, you know, there in the auditorium, people talking to us, whatever, we finally got back into the fellowship hall where the meal was, and that thing was picked clean. I mean, Waverly had to struggle to get enough food to feed the babes, and I don't think I ate anything. And we laughed about that because all the way home I said, sweetheart, I don't think God's calling us at that place. We'll starve to death up there. I made a joke out of it. And I'm not picking at that church, okay? They were hungry and that's fine. No big deal. But this is what happened. These people were eating all the food up. Maybe it was the have and the have nots, the wealthy and not so wealthy. Who knows what it was about. But there was not this caring and loving consciousness of each other in the body of Christ. We don't all look the same. We're not all the same except one thing. We're blood-bought. We're blood-bought. And that makes us brothers and sisters in Christ. And that supersedes every other thing that might cause division. Then Paul moves into, begins to explain the sacredness and sanctity of the Lord's Supper. First, the Lord's table is a place of redemptive proclamation. It's redemptive proclamation every time we share the Lord's Supper. 1126, for as often as you eat this bread, drink this cup, what? You show the Lord's death until he comes. Every time we share this table, we're showing the Lord's death. That, didi, show is a Greek word. It means to publish, make known, present tense, meaning every time we come together, every single time, we are showing, we are proclaiming the Lord's death for us. That means as a church, but it also means individually. As we partake individually of the bread and the wine together, we are each of us publicly professing that the Lord Jesus Christ died for us every time we partake. We're public professing. I am one for whom he died. Publicly professing. And so what are we doing? We're publicly professing the bread and the cup, the body of of Christ broken for me and thee, his blood shed for me and thee, to wash us from our sins, a public redemptive proclamation. And secondly, the Lord's table is a place of prophetic proclamation. What a wonderful thing. Every time we share this, every single time we share this, well, how long we share it? Not glory, till he comes. So what are we doing? It's a prophetic proclamation. We are sharing the Lord's table. We're gonna share it this Sunday. Our next time will be October the 6th, this fall, Lord willing, unless he comes. Because he is coming, you know. He is coming. So we continue. Oh, I love this verse, Hebrews 9, 28, one of the many verses speaking of his coming. So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many, and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation." So here we are, every time we share the Lord's Supper, we're publicly proclaiming, He died for me, and for us, we're also publicly proclaiming, claiming prophetically that He's coming, and we're gonna do this until He comes. A little feedback, Rudy. It's coming again. It's what He promised. He said, I'll go repair a place for you. And if I go and repair that place for you, I'm going to come again and receive you to myself. So what is He coming back for? To take us to the place He prepared for us. And it's just as sure and certain as all the word of God. He's coming again. And we are proclaiming that He died for me, died for us. And we're proclaiming that we're going to do this until He comes for us. That's how long we'll share communion together until that glorious day. But then it gets into a very important part in this text, and that's in verse 28. Let a man, woman, boy or girl examine himself. And so let him eat of that bread and drink of that cup. That word examine means to test or to prove, to look over carefully. It literally could be said this way, let each believer, man or woman, boy or girl, put themselves on trial under the lens of scripture, examining closely, carefully, their spiritual condition, talking about believers now, as they come to share in the Lord's table. Verse 27, it's got this word unworthily in it. Wherefore, whomsoever shall eat this bread and drink this cup of the Lord unworthily shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord Jesus." Unworthily. This is written to believers, remember. And believers can come to the table unworthily. It's whoever, it's whenever, every time, every individual believer has a potential to come to the table unworthily. And that's where your second handout comes in. And this is Jonathan Edwards. And I'll tell you, it's just good. I like it really well. And it cuts no slack to the flesh. I want you to know that. It cuts no slack to the flesh. And so we'll go through that. It's self-examination before the Lord's table. Our self-examination should include the following questions. Do I practice any known sin? If I live in sin and willful rebellion against the will of God in any known commandment, I'm unfit to come. Do I have a serious resolution to avoid all sin and obey all commands as long as I live? If I intend to confess some sin in order to approach a table, only to return to that sin afterwards, I am insincere and unfit to come. Number three, do I entertain a spirit of hatred or enmity toward any neighbor? If so, the leaven of malice and hatred makes me unfit to celebrate the Lord's table. Number four, what is my motive in coming? Is it to spiritually profit and grow in grace and holiness or to seek some temporal advantage or credit such as being accepted in the church or saving face in front of others? Only sincere motives are acceptable to the Lord who tries men's hearts with ignition eyes of fire. Powerful really powerful tool for self-examination and when you have a copy of it, I suggest, you know, tuck this away because you know, October 6th Lord willing We'll have communion again. So October The week before, maybe the fifth, the day before, pull this thing out, look it over, pray through it. Charles Spurgeon said, he said, you know, everybody's concerned about the preacher studying and preparing and getting ready to preach on Sunday's coming. He said, but people fail to forget that you never plant seed in ground that hasn't been tilled, so to speak. And he meant by that, it's just as important for the people of God as it is for the preachers of the land to prepare their hearts, tilling the soil of their hearts through the lens of scripture day by day by day. There's nothing more important than the word of God in our lives, daily. You know, that verse we sang a while ago, talking about the word adding length of days, did you ever think about that? It does. It's just something about getting up and getting in the Word in the morning and then sometime in prayer, and all of a sudden it seems like you'll accomplish more that day than the day you sloughed off at your devotional life. I used to have it on the hallway of one of my pastors. It says, when the saints sleep at devotion, or those at devotion, Satan rocks the cradle. I experienced that some, you know, in my study. I'd get up early in the morning and have a little breakfast, a little cup of java, and I'd go in there and sit down. And I'd be wide awake, and after a little while, this doziness. It's got to be, there has to be a demon of drowsiness assigned to me. I'd get sleepy and I'd get up and walk around and come back in and fight it sometime. Maybe it's old age. Personal examination is always going to be a part of our personal preparation to partake of the Lord's Supper, every time. Don't ever take that lightly, we've got to do it. And, of course, then it goes personal preparation. Well, first of all, we have to be sure we've got the positional preparation. What is positional preparation? We've got to be saved, that's it. We have to be sure that we're saved. 13.5, 2 Corinthians, Paul says, examine yourselves where you've been in the faith. Be sure you're saved. No, you're not that yourselves, how Christ is in you, except you'd be reprobates. What a harsh phrase. You're either in Christ, or as our translation says, reprobates. No other ground. It's not in Christ, and then these real nice church-intending good people And then there's little reprobates out there in the world, in the bars, in the places, in the backstreet alleys. No, either in Christ, or we're reprobates. Oh my soul, I personally have been a reprobate. And you have too, if you tell the truth. Because you haven't always been saved. I'm gonna cut some slack here. That word reprobate, in the Greek, it's simply, it's not so harsh sounding this way, okay, but it's still tough. It means fraudulent. a misleading appearance, a misleading appearance. I've had the privilege of pastoring some along the way that had lived for years with a misleading appearance. Outwardly, everybody, well, that person's got to be saved. Inwardly, they fought, so for the most part, but on a day, on a day, the Holy Spirit of God nailed them. Regeneration that came to genuine saving faith in the Lord Jesus Christ happens to good people, happens to good people. that have been meaning well a long time. Some of them have been teaching at Sunday school, by the way. This one lady had been teaching the children at Sunday school for years. She came under conviction, she was lost. Admittedly resigned as a teacher. Came for baptism. Half the church about fainted. She's one of the sweetest ladies on the planet. But then the church wisely refused after her baptism, confession of faith, they refused her resignation. Interesting story. I love to see that lady again, she was sweet. So to partake of the symbols of the Lord's body and death without being a part of the body of Christ, That's to come in as an unworthy person. This text doesn't speak of an unworthy person. This is written to Christians. But when we're unsaved, we're coming as an unworthy person. We've not, one of those have been saved, not born of God through the Lord Jesus Christ. And those who participate that are not Christians are no better off than the Athenians. or that lady that Paul talked to about the Samaritan woman that Jesus talked to. The Athenians had an altar to the unknown God. And the Samaritan woman said, well, our fathers worshiped in this mountain. Jesus said, you don't know whom you worship. You don't know what you worship. And that's what the issue is. If you're not born of God, you can't be in personal relationship with God the Father through Jesus' son. That's it. You're not in personal relationship. You're still spiritually dead. And so consequently, you can't be in fellowship spiritually with him. And this disqualifies you as far as coming as a worthy person to the table, because the table is a witness to the blood boughtness of us who participate in it. An unworthy person. And so, if you're without Christ and salvation, you're no better off than the Athenians in that altar of the unknown God or this Samaritan woman that Jesus said, hey, you just don't know, you don't know who you worship. And Jesus said to Nicodemus, he says to anyone outside of Christ, you gotta be born again. Nicodemus, if you're not born again, you're never going to see the kingdom of God. You're not going to enter the kingdom of God. You must be born again. That's all in John chapter 3. But our text falls right into Christians, and they have the necessary positional preparation, okay? They've been born of God. They've been declared worthy to participate. They are worthy to participate, but being worthy to participate is not of their own work. Titus 3, 5 says, not by works of righteousness we have done, but according to his mercy, he saved us by the washing and regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Spirit. That's a work of God in our lives, nothing that we've done, but we're qualified to come as worthy people to participate in the Lord's Supper. However, we can come in an unworthy manner. That's where this examination comes in, this unworthiness in 27. That word there is not an adjective. It's not speaking of an unworthy person. It's an adverb of manner. It's speaking, coming, a person who is qualified positionally, having been born of God, baptized believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. But this person that is worthy in that regard, in the worthiness imputed to them by Christ Jesus Lord, can come in an unworthy manner. And that's what this is about. It's an adverb of manner. coming in an unworthy manner, to participate in this irreverently, not taking seriously the gravity of this.