May I draw your attention to the fourteenth chapter in the Gospel according to Mark. And we may again read from verse twenty-two through verse twenty-five. 14, chapter 14, verse 22, And as they did eat, Jesus took bread, and blessed, and breaked it, and gave it to them, and said, Take, eat, this is my body. And he took the cup, And when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, and they all drank of it. And he said unto them, This is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many. Verily, I say unto you, I will drink no more of the fruit of the vine until that day that I drink it new in the kingdom of God. There are three things that perhaps we might consider together this morning from the context. There is first of all the projection, and then our Lord speaks of the fruit of the vine, and last of all, his Father's kingdom. First of all then, the projection, and the projection was the setting forth what lay still in the future. That in itself was unveiled from the present. And in circumstances, the disciples needed sensibly to undergird that hope and to look beyond the present governing storm. The present for the disciples was loaded with conflicting fears. However much our Lord has spoken to them about his approaching sufferings leading to death, they did what they could to put these thoughts aside. They didn't really accept them because they didn't want to accept them. And yet they were aware of a growing sense of hostility to our Lord and Savior. and also they were aware of the personal sense of stress and conflict, which they could very clearly see in the reactions of our Lord. And so, We may ask ourselves the question, why did the disciples feel so upset? Did they not believe that he was Messiah? And Messiah was described from early times as the one who would come to conquer and would conquer. He was set before them as the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the mastermind who knew exactly what was required in order to achieve all that is contained in the promises of God. Why were they then afraid? When the Lord Jesus was at the helm, was there anything to be afraid of? Well, perhaps the fear basically was that our Lord would not be able to take care of himself. And also there was the fear that in some way or another their expectations of how things would develop were not just developing that way. And so we see a situation where our Lord is handling in his own beautiful and perfect way a situation that required very delicate handling. It was not the time to expose that frailty in a way that would not become their strength in later days. Christ is the great physician, and the way that he handles his own is unique to himself. He knows exactly what to do. and he will not allow any interjection of any power or any agency to interfere with that care which he so lovingly administers. But what was the disciple's problem? Well, They basically weren't actually listening to what our Lord was saying to them. Don't we find ourselves often in that situation? We get very upset, we get very depressed at the corruption that keeps welling up in our hearts. And we come to the conclusion that there cannot be any sanctification going on in our lives. That instead of getting better and becoming holy, that we are getting worse. and we are all together and holy. Now the Holy Spirit in his own wonderful way saw proper to record in scripture again and again this clarity. That was the experience of great men, men whom we have raised to high honor and blessed with great blessings. We see, for example, if we go back to the life of Abraham, a person who received the call so clearly that there was no mistaking in his mind that it was God calling him. And we know that as his life developed, that he stands in a unique place because of the way in which God blessed him. But if we look closer at Abraham's life, we find a time when he thought that God was not able to protect him in the situation that he was in. And he told what in one sense was the truth, but in another sense was a half-truth. And if God had not miraculously intervened, something very, very serious would have developed. If we come to the life of David, We know how he, without fear, went to meet Goliath of the Philistines, and how, in the strength of God, he ensnared him. But then we come across a development much later on After David had fought his battles and won, and after he had sung, seen in a variety of ways, what God was able to do, and what he was doing, David coming to the conclusion, God is not able to protect me from Saul someday. I will fall into his hands. And what does he do? For protection, in his own wisdom, he went to live among the Philistines. But when we come to the New Testament, we read in this very chapter how Peter, was so adamant that whatever would have happened, he would be faithful to him. I would never deny it. Now, it was extraordinarily presumptuous of Peter to speak in that way. Christ said to him he would deny him because Satan had wanted to sift him. But Peter was saying to Messiah, you don't really understand me. I look to you to save me. that in this situation you've got it wrong. You are saying that I am going to be tempted in such a way that I will yield to the temptation. What did our Lord do? He told him exactly what was going to happen. And then he let immensely well until Peter had tasted the bitter fruit of his own unfaithfulness. And so we see the disciples here, they all felt in the hour of crisis. And so we see a misunderstanding arising through a lack of understanding. They were not taught. They felt that they themselves were able to interpret the situation they were in. Well, of course, the disciples loved the Lord. They loved him very much. And Christ says afterwards, in spite of all their failures, ye are they who have continued with me in my temptations, and I appoint unto you my kingdom. There is something very beautiful in the lives of the disciples, but what is beautiful is what Christ has wrought in their lives. Otherwise there is no beauty, none at all. But what is repulsive and what ought to make every one of us, young and old, afraid of what sin can do to distort and to destroy our lives if Christ does not intervene. And so we see in the situation that we were in, that the disciples were needing a break from the tension that was all but overwhelming them. And we see when they went to the garden, such was the stress that was working in their minds and in their hearts. Now, it is a wonderful thing that Christ is up to heaven, isn't it? It is a wonderful thing that Christ is the head of the church. And he hasn't given, and never will, that place to anybody else. It is kept strictly in his own hands. How thankful we are that it is not in the hands of ministers, or in my own hands, How awful the very thought that the well-being of even a congregation was in my hands. How awful to think that the well-being of the church is in the monarchist's hands. How awful to think that the Church and its well-being is in the hands of the Archbishop of Canterbury. And how terrifying to think that the well-being of the Church is in the hands of the Pope of Rome. But above all that, how awful would life be if our well-being was in our own hands for our own personal development in this world. And so Christ said to the disciples that without him they could achieve absolutely nothing. And my dear friends, may God enable us to worship Him, the great and glorious Head of the Church, whose death we are here assembled to remember until He comes. But what does Christ say in projecting future developments? Well, he is stressed beyond words himself. It is obvious to see. And the great and the mighty in Jerusalem are combined. They don't hide. the hatred that they bear to him any more. And Judas Iscariot has done his own terrible work. And these pushers, the mighty are combined, they're closing in on Christ. The disciples are scattered. There is a darkness that is enveloping the minds of people in the same way as the darkness that was to envelop in an unnatural way the world or the environment in which they live. In that situation, Christ is telling his disciples that nothing is lost, nothing will be lost. He will measure up to these forces. The hour of the judgment of Satan has arrived. He is going to be overthrown in a manner that will end it. another step forward in the process of redemption to which the Lord Jesus has committed himself. And we see here in the goodness and the wisdom of God how he breaks in on the situation of the disciples to tell them Yes, you don't understand. Yes, the enemies are closing in, and I have to come to drink a cup that you can't even appreciate. And in that situation, I am telling you now, that after this cup of suffering, I will drink the fruit of the vine, new with you, in the kingdom of God. What is that message to us? Ah well, my dear sinner, I'm sure you feel, if you feel as I do, very unworthy to sit at the Lord's table. And of yourself, and of myself, we are all totally unworthy to sit at the Lord's table. But then, We have come to the place where we have learned the greatest lesson of all, that the righteousness that would enable us to enter into that wonderful relationship with God, to know Him as He really is, and To renew our lives and develop our potential, we see that in that process that we look to Christ to wash away our sin, to put it away. Nobody else could. You cannot. I can't. And you say to yourself, but how can I come? Well, of course, you couldn't come unless you were invited to come. It is of the appointment of God. that this door has opened wide open, and that sinners are invited to look unto Him and to be saved. But God gives demonstration after demonstration of how He is able to save the vilest sinner. If you go back to Manasseh, the son of Hezekiah. Hezekiah was a very worthy king. Manasseh was a very unworthy son. And he completely rebelled against all that he was taught with respect to the God of Israel. And so fierce was he in his attempt to destroy all that witnessed to God, that we are told he had the streets of Jerusalem running with the blood of the saints. And yet you will remember how Manasseh, at last in chains, a prisoner, prayed to God. What would you and I say to a person who had acted in this devilish way and had abused all the privileges that he had ever received in order to oppose every assertion of the witness as to who God is. Well, I think if we were on the sidelines and we would hear Manasseh play, we would say to ourselves, too late, my boy, too late. You have thrown your wild oats You are weeping now what you have sown. You have brought untold anguish into thousands of bones in Israel. But what does God say? God listened to his prayer. the holiest of all. God who is so pure that he will not compromise sin in any shape or form. God listened to Manasseh and answered his prayer. And just one quick example when we think of David and when the prophet Nathan came to him and brought him to the place where he had to confess what he had so skillfully tried to cover up and to pretend it never happened. But when David was brought to the place where he had to face up to his sin, David says, I have sinned against the Lord. But what is really wonderful, what the prophet then says to him, God has put away your sin. How do you wash away adultery? How do you wash away murder? How do you deal with concealment? God does. God can. God delights in mercy. Judgment is a strange one. And so then we come next to think of what Aurore says about the fruit of the vine. Now I say this portion particularly because it was bringing what he said about his body being broken and by way of providing for their needs and he then speaks of the fruit of the vine. Jesus had on a previous occasion compared the kingdom to new wine. You remember how he says, no man puts new wine into old bottles. And he uses a word which contrasts what is freshly pressed of the juice of the grapes ready for fermentation as contrasted with wine that has matured. Christ, of course, is speaking of an altogether new dispensation. Now remember, for the disciples, and at that time, that whole world was tumbling down, all around them. Nothing was making sense. And they themselves were utterly unable to interpret what was happening. Although they had the scriptures of the Old Testament, although they could read Isaiah 53 just as we read, they just did not understand. Paul didn't understand. With all his learning and with all his familiarity with the Old Testament writings, he could not relate the stumbling of Messiah predicted in the Old Testament with Jesus of the New Testament. There is no blindness like the blindness of sin. No blindness like the blindness of sin. And so Christ speaks here of a new dispensation. He is telling the disciples, everything is in control. Just as at this very moment, everything is in control, absolutely in control. Yes, the humanists are making their own statements, but people are trying even within the churches to rewrite the Bible and to tell us that what the Bible says with respect to certain situations is not something that we take seriously. And the Jew seems to be in a position where Iran and other places tell very clearly that they are building up their resources to destroy them from the face of the earth. And the political correctness of nations enter into the situation with their ideas of an Arab Spring, and they are talking of the plight of the Palestinians, And very often the Jew is the bad boy, he is the reconqueror, the person that refuses to submit. And the Jew himself has his own problem, that as an earthly group, the poor and unbelieving staring the hound's head over the night. What is going to happen? Well, all that will happen will be very minutely and precisely under control. as it was on the cross when the enemies closed in upon Christ. But he triumphantly exclaimed, it is finished, and committed his spirit to his Father. His body was put in the tomb, Of course, the Jews said, this deceiver, well, they said extraordinary. These weren't actual atheists, these were the people in the church, the Judaists of the day. This deceiver, he was to them a subject of no consequence, said something about rising on the third day. We'll have to take care of this matter too. We've already put him to death. That's a good thing. And now we have to take care that his disciples don't steal the body by night and say that he's risen from the dead. Pilate was absolutely, he had a gutful of the hypocrisy of the Jew, as a Roman judge could see through their deception. You have a watch, make it a situation card. They did that, but did they lock Jesus in the tomb? These lovely women that went at the peril of their lives to do what they wanted to do into what remained of the one whom they loved. When they were brokenhearted in the garden, they weeped when the rest had gone away. Christ says to them, Mary, why are you weeping? And then he made himself go to her. Thomas, at a later stage, doubting the story that they were going about, I don't believe it, I don't believe it, unless I put my fingers in the print of the nails in the place where the sword entered. I just don't accept what you're saying." Christ appealed. Thomas, he said, reached into thy faith. What was Thomas' reaction? My Lord and my God, an instant recognition. of the Lordship that cannot be denied whatever the circumstances may be on this earth or elsewhere. Jesus is Lord and so we see this wonderful projection of our Lord. speaking about the fruit of the vine. And some commentators, perhaps most commentators, speak of the second coming of Christ as being the new dispensation that is referred to. But other commentators point out, is there not a possibility in taking it that when the church was regrouped, reformed, baptized with the Holy Spirit, and going forth to conquer, was that not an entering into an experience of the new dispensation? that our Lord must speak about. And last of all, just a word or two about the kingdom of God. What is the kingdom of God? Well, just what it says, the rule of God. God is the possessor of heaven and earth. I often used to think, in my foolishness, indebted to men of high estate if they would provide for the nation. in order that certain things might be done in a fair way. But who really possesses the riches of the super-story? Who really possesses the land and the cattle on the thousand hills? Who really possesses the oceans and the oil that is extracted from it? Well, the Bible makes it very, very clear, very, very clear. the King of God. In the 18th century, France had very eminent thinkers, and after the disposing of their king, they set forth to eradicate every trace of religion in France. And they predicted within a very short space of time that the gospel, the truth of the word of God, would be something consigned to the museums of the land. something that would have no power. The memory of these men has gone, but the memory of Jesus is still fragrant. We hear that China is a rising economic power, and if we were to visit China, we are told that we would come across millions of believers. Now I don't know how accurate, or nobody knows how accurate these figures are, but what we do know is that there is a powerful and heavenly witness to the gospel throughout the land of China. We all know about the fall of communism that once predicted that it could control through its materials the whole world. Khrushchev in his heyday was very conscious of the power that lay in his hands, but what What has happened? Communism collapsed. Atheistic communism collapsed. And what do we find? There are lovely Russian Christians in the heart of Moscow. People who lived in the belief that Jesus is Lord. People who had gone to prison in the worst days and endured what could be thrown at them. Why is that? It's the kingship, the kingship of our Lord. Well, my dear friends, with these few scattered thoughts, may we reflect upon Christ, who is the head of the church, and in Christ may we be enabled to remember his death until he comes, let us pray.