We come now to our studies on the Short of Catechism and tonight we are looking at question 97. Last Tuesday evening we dealt with what is the Lord's Supper, so tonight number 97, what is required to the worthy receiving of the Lord's Supper? It is required of them that would worthily partake of the Lord's Supper that they examine themselves of their knowledge to discern the Lord's body, of their faith to feed upon him, of their repentance, love, and new obedience, lest, coming unworthily, they eat and drink judgment to themselves. So the subject tonight is the worthy priesthood of the Lord's Supper. First of all, who should come to the Lord's table? Many churches today practice open communion. Perhaps you've been on holiday down in England, maybe, and you've gone along to, say, a Baptist church, and maybe at the end of the morning service they'll have communion. And the bread and the wine is passed around to everybody in the church. And if you want, you take it. If you don't want it, you pass it. You pass it along the pew. So it's left up to you whether you take it or not. And there's no supervision. Now, there's a danger in that. Because the Lord's Table is not for everyone. The preaching of the Gospel is for everyone. Everyone is invited to come in and hear the preaching of the Gospel. People can come in and witness the Lord's Supper, but the Lord's Supper itself is not to be partaken of by everyone. It's not for the unconverted. It's not a converting ordinance. It wasn't ordained by Christ to cause people to be born again. to make them, transform them from being sinners into saints. That wasn't its purpose. The purpose of the Lord's Supper is for the strengthening and encouraging of those who already are Christians. So a person needs to be saved to benefit from it. The Lord's Supper The Lord's Supper, the Lord's Table is for the Lord's people, not only for the Lord's people. The Lord's Table for the Lord's people. The Lord's Table is for those who trust in Christ, who love Christ, who appreciate Christ. Those who have come to see that Jesus is their bread and their drink. They have found Him as the Saviour of their souls. They have put their trust in Him as the One who loved them and died for them. And Christ is their Lord and Christ is their Saviour. And they want to remember His death and to celebrate it because His death is everything to them. Where will we be but for the death of Christ? We'd be in hell. We'd be lost forever. So our salvation is based upon the death of Christ. We do this in remembrance of Him. His death is our life. His death is our food and drink. And so, for the Lord's people who have come to appreciate the work of the Lord Jesus, the table is for them, and only for them. It's not for the unconverted. It's not for the self-righteous, the hypocrite, the person who trusts in their own works. If we're trusting in our keeping of the commandments, if we're trusting in our church going, trusting in our religious practices, then we're not trusting in Jesus alone. So if we're trusting in anything that's in us, or anything that we have done, the Lord's Table's not for us. The Lord's Table is looking to what Christ did, and celebrating salvation as the gift of God, and feeding upon Christ. So it's not for the hypocrite, it's for those for whom Christ's death is everything. You wish to celebrate the death of Christ. Let's finish our second class. for whom the Lord's Supper is not. It's not for the unconverted or the hypocrite. Neither is the Lord's Supper for the backslidden Christian. The Lord's Supper is not for the Christian who is going on in scandalous sin. For example, if a Christian gives way to the temptation of drink and becomes a drunkard or an alcoholic and is constantly depending on the drink, they shouldn't be at the Lord's table. There has to be a repentance and a change of life. If somebody who is a Christian gets into an immoral relationship with a woman and is living with somebody that they're not married to, then that person has no right to be at the Lord's table. If a Christian is involved in business practices which are not proper and right and just, fraudulent practices or stealing or whatever, their place is not at the Lord's table. So the Lord's table is for Christians who are humbly following the Lord. They're not perfect. Nobody in this life is perfect. But open scandalous sin cannot be accepted. You see, a person who is involved in open scandalous sin, they disgrace the church. But more than that, they disgrace the Saviour. They're saying on the one hand that we've been purged from our old sins, and on the other hand they're wallowing in these old sins. Now there's something wrong there. If we claim to be converted, how are we living like a pig wallowing in the mire that we were in, that we said we had been cleansed from? How can we who say that we have been born again be like a dog returning to its own filthy vomit again? No, you leave the world and its wicked ways behind and you live for God. And a Christian, if they are a Christian, who has backslidden into drink or dishonesty or whatever it is, or immorality, they have no right to claim that they're Christian. Their life contradicts it. Jesus says, by their fruits ye shall know them. And if our fruit is saying, you're a wicked person, then nobody should be saying we're righteous. Our fruit says we're wicked. Our life says we're wicked. And we've got no right to claim that we're Christian. We might be. and might be backslidden and maybe after some years or some time the Lord will bring us back but as long as we are in a backslidden state our place is not at the Lord's table and we have no right to claim that we are Christians God's people are saints The saints in Philippi, the saints in Ephesus, the saints in Corinth, the saints in Knightswood. We are to be a holy people, a separate people, a different people. You have been called out of darkness into His marvellous light. And if you're still in darkness and doing the works of darkness, you place us not at the Lord's table. Called out. called apart. We are to leave the old ways behind. No, we're not sinless. We have sinful hearts and sometimes sinful things come out of our mouths and sometimes we do things that are sinful. All of us come short. Nobody is perfect. But there's a difference between sinning and sinning openly and scandalously So that the world can look at you and the church can look at you and say, that person's life is not the way a Christian should live. So then, the Lord's table is not for those who are in scandalous sin. Because there are certain groups excluded from the table it's wrong to have open communion. Elders are appointed in the church to rule the church and to regulate the affairs of the church and so the elders are to rule things like the Lord's table and if at the Lord's table People are coming to the Lord's table who shouldn't be there. It's the elder's duty to keep them away from that. So open communion should not be practised. On the other hand, we can be too closed in our communion. That can also be wrong with us. There are some churches and they won't accept anybody from another church. They'll only accept people from their own church. But the Lord's Table is not a denominational table. It's not belonging to any single church. The Lord's Table is for the Lord's people, whatever denomination they belong to. And so we are not to exclude those who are professing Christians of other churches who are living consistent lives, they should be accepted at the Lord's Table. It's not a denominational table. It doesn't belong to the Free Church Continuing or the Free Presbyterians or the Church of Scotland or whatever. It belongs to Christ. It's for the Lord's people, the Lord's Table. So we're not to exclude Christians from other churches. And neither, this is another problem that you get in some churches, neither is the Lord's table to be kept simply for mature Christians, or very strong Christians, or very holy Christians, or very knowledgeable Christians. There are some churches and they're very exclusive. There are churches, for example, in Holland where you might have maybe two or three thousand people in the church. Huge congregations and maybe only a hundred coming to the Lord's table. There's something wrong there. Something far wrong. The Lord's table being kept just for old Christians, or particularly tested and approved of Christians, or Christians who are very knowledgeable. No, the Lord's table is for the Lord's people. Those whom the Lord has saved, to whom he says, do this in remembrance of me. It's for, in a sense, it's more for the weak Christian than for the strong. And the weak Christian gets more help from it, than the strong. It's there to encourage our faith, and to help us to focus on Christ, and His body broken and His blood shed for us, so that we can embrace these things, and our weak faith is strengthened and encouraged. Yes, for young Christians, For we Christians, for all Christians, none should be excluded. So, we must not be too exclusive in the way that we administer the Lord's Table. The elders are to oversee it, but are to encourage all the Lord's people who are living consistent lives to be there at His Table. Now, Is it an unforgivable sin to sit at the Lord's table if you're unconverted? Some people think it is and they take the warning in 1 Corinthians 11 in that way. Verse 27, Whosoever shall eat this bread or drink this cup of the Lord unworthily shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. Terrible thing to be guilty of, the body and blood of the Lord. Verse 29, He that eateth and drinketh unworthily eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord's body. These are very threatening words, very strong words, and they certainly have to be taken seriously. But what is meant here? Is it saying that if you're unconverted and come to the Lord's table, you'll end up in hell? Well, one point that we must make at the beginning is that the word damnation, condemnation here is actually translated from the Greek as more judgment. Eateth and drinketh judgment. Judgment upon themselves. Judgment comes upon them. Another point we should make is that in the history of the Church there have been some very prominent men of God and no doubt women of God who sat at the table first when they were unconverted. Think, for example, of the great leader of the Church in the early Covenanting times in Scotland, the 1638 Assembly, Alexander Henderson. Henderson became a minister when he was unconverted and administered the sacrament and took it himself. And then one day he went to hear Robert Bruce preaching. Robert Bruce was a great evangelical minister. Robert Bruce preached on that verse in John chapter 10 about Christ being the door and whosoever comes in through the door is the shepherd of the sheep. But those that come some other way, are thieves and robbers. Alexander Henderson was hiding in a dark corner of the church. Nobody, didn't want anybody to know he was there. And it would seem very likely that Robert Bruce didn't know he was there either. He had come in, crept in, he was hiding in the corner. And he heard this sermon preached upon those who don't come in through the door. but to come in some other way. And he thought of how at his own ordination the congregation had locked the door against him. And so he and the ungodly presbytery who were with him had to climb in a window. And God blessed that message to his sole salvation. He was convicted that at that point he was a thief and a robber. And so he was converted. and later on became a great Gospel and Reformed preacher. Thomas Chalmers, who was the leader of the Free Church, began his ministry in Fife, unconverted, for several years unconverted. His interest was in mathematics and he was teaching at the University in St. Andrews. And then, following a protracted illness, He was converted. So there's two men, great men of God, who sat at the Lord's table and converted. And yet we believe they are in heaven today. So what does it mean? Well, one thing that you have to notice is that the word that's here is not he that eateth and drinketh and is unworthy. It's not talking about the unworthiness of the person who eats or drinks, but rather about the manner. It's the adverb, unworthily. He who eats and drinks unworthily. And what Paul is particularly getting at in 1 Corinthians 11, as I'll show later on, is the manner in which the Corinthians were observing the Lord's table. was wrong. But that, of course, doesn't take away from the fact that there are some people who are unworthy to be at the Lord's table. In a sense, we're all unworthy to be at the Lord's table. None of us are worthy in and of ourselves. Worthy is Christ, and our worthiness comes from Christ, and as we trust in Christ, we are worthy. But then of course we can think of some who as I said before are unconverted or maybe are badly backslidden and they shouldn't be at the Lord's table. But let us remember that for every sin there is forgiveness apart from The one sin that Christ defined as the unforgivable sin. The blasphemy against the Holy Ghost. There's no forgiveness for that. Calling the Holy Spirit Beelzebub, the Prince of Devils. There's no forgiveness for that. The sin that is explained in Hebrews chapter 6 and in other parts of Hebrews. Those who have experienced the gospel, felt its power, enjoyed it, and then turned away and crucified Christ again, for them there is no forgiveness, seeing they have crucified for themselves the Son of God afresh. Those who have come to understand, to feel, to appreciate the blessing of the Gospel and apostatized the unforgivable sin. But the sitting at the Lord's table unconverted, that's not unforgivable. It's serious. And many sins are serious, but there is forgiveness for it. So that's an important point for us to remember. It's not an unforgivable sin to sit at the Lord's table unconverted. So now, let's think about the warnings that we have in 1 Corinthians 11. the warnings about drinking unworthily, in an unworthy manner. Now what has Paul got to say about this unworthy manner? He says, first of all, that they were eating and drinking unworthily because there were divisions among them. That's a very important point. Verse 18, For first of all, when ye come together in the church, I hear that there be divisions among you. And I partly believe it. There must also be heresies and divisions among you that they which are approved may be made manifest. But that was a serious thing. Lord Sable, you see, is an expression of communion. Of unity, of love to one another. the one bread and the one cup. And if we're like the Corinthians and the Corinthian church was terribly divided into parties. I am of Paul and I am of Apollos. I'm on Cephas's side. Each one had their own leader that they were looking up to and they fell out with others and they despised others and there was party spirit there. Now if we come to the Lord's table and we are hostile towards others at that table, we're eating and drinking unworthily. So that's an important point. Coming to the Lord's table, it's vital for us to search our hearts. Do we have something in our hearts against others who are there? Well, we have to put that right. We can't be coming to the Lord's table with bad feelings and bad thoughts, with pride and party spirit and falling out with others. The Lord's table is unity. There's one Christ, one spirit, one gospel, one salvation, one heaven, one cup, one bread. We are to be united. Christ in his high priestly prayer prayed that they might be one. that his church would be united and we are to strive for unity. Now as we look around the world there are many churches and that is a grief, yes, but we ourselves must strive for unity and it's a unity in the truth and in righteousness. Not a unity of forgetting the truth, not a unity of denying the truth, not a unity of accepting immorality and wickedness and things that are wrong, but rather a unity in the truth, in Christ, in the body, loving the Lord Jesus and his ways. That's where our unity is to be found, in Christ. We are to seek a unity in Christ, oneness. So unity was a problem amongst the Corinthians. And the second problem that they had, how they were eating and drinking unworthily, was that each was taking before themselves their own supper. And one was hungry and another was drunk. What a mess! The Lord's Supper, it's not to be a natural, ordinary feast. It's a spiritual feast. Just a morsel of bread, a mouthful of wine, that's all. It's not to be a meal. If somebody is hungry, let them eat at home, says the apostle. How terrible to have one person there taking along a feast and in fact indulging in gluttony and going to the extent of drunkenness. Drunkenness is always wrong. And how terribly wrong in church and how terribly wrong at the Lord's table. No wonder the Apostle used such strong language, eating and drinking judgment to themselves. Misusing the Lord's table, guilty of the body and blood of the Lord, one hungry, another drunk. No, it's unity that's coming together and it's sharing together. Communion is sharing the one loaf and the one cup. And so we are told, verse 30, For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep. Many were weak, suffering from weakness, and some suffering from sickness, and some had even died. And that was the chastisement of the Lord. God was unhappy with what was taking place, And so His judgment was coming upon the Corinthians. We've got to remember that if we're doing things that are wrong and persisting in doing things that are wrong, we are liable to God's judgment. Sometimes God's judgment comes in the form of sickness. Sickness isn't always God's judgment, but sometimes it is. And sometimes even death is God's judgment. on Christians. That's the way it seems here. Some sleep, and by sleep there is meant death. If we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged. So the apostles say, come on, start judging yourselves and then you won't come under the judgment of God. Judge yourselves. Is it right what you're doing when you're not sharing together, when there's division among you at the Lord's table? For when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, corrected by the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world. So, some of the Corinthians were being chastened by the Lord, but that was the mercy of God, correcting them with illness and with weakness and even with death, so that they wouldn't perish with the world, with the ungodly and wicked world. 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, wait for one another. And if anyone's hungry, eat at home. You come not together to condemnation, but rather for a blessing. So then, looking again at the words that we have here in the Catechism, what is required to the worthy receiving of the Lord's Supper? It is required of them that would worthily partake of the Lord's Supper that they examine themselves. Self-examination is important before taking communion. It's to be stressed. But it's let them examine themselves and so let them eat. It's examine yourself, put right what is wrong and come to the Lord's table and eat it. Not examine yourselves and stay away. But examine yourselves, put right what is wrong and come to the Lord's table. That's the way it's there. Let a man examine himself and so let him eat. of that bread and drink of that cup. Examine yourself about your knowledge, their knowledge to discern the Lord's body. We need to know the gospel. We're coming to the Lord's table to know who Jesus Christ is and to know what he did on the cross, to know that he died to save us from our sins. We need to know the work of Christ to understand it. And we need to understand the sacrament, how it's a portrayal of Christ's body broken and his blood shed. So there's a basic knowledge, a certain knowledge that is required. Let us examine ourselves and make sure that we know what we're doing when we come to the Lord's table. their knowledge to discern the Lord's body, their faith to feed upon Him. Not only do we need to have knowledge, but we have to have faith, faith in Christ, faith in His body and His blood, faith in His sacrifice. So we have to have faith in Christ and faith feeds on Christ, faith draws from Christ. Faith is our spiritual mouth, as it were, by which we eat Christ. Do you have that faith and are you feeding on Christ each day? And we are to examine ourselves as regards our repentance. Those who come to the Lord's table are those who are repentant, those who are sorrowful for sin. It's often a question that's asked by the kirk session of those who come to profess faith. Do you have a consciousness of sin? Does sin bother you? Sin should bother us. We should be troubled about it. We should be troubled about it as Christians. Blessed are they that mourn, that mourn over sin. Blessed are the poor in spirit that feel their own poverty. So, repentance. It's vital for our prophet. Repentance and love. Love to God. Love to Christ. It's a feast of love. Do we love Him? We are to examine ourselves as regards our love and new obedience. Do we delight in the law of God? Is the law of God written upon our heart and conscience? Does it concern us? We are not perfect, but are we longing to be perfect? Are we different from what we once were? Have we been changed? New obedience. lest, coming unworthily, they eat and drink judgment to themselves. The problem in Corinth was that they were coming thoughtlessly to the Lord's table. We mustn't come thoughtlessly, carelessly, but come carefully, conscientiously, sensitively, not trampling God's courts, but treading lightly, yes, coming into His presence, coming with a certain boldness because He has invited us to come and because we trust in Jesus and we have His warrant, His command, but yet at the same time conscious of our own sinfulness and frailty but we must be obedient to his command. Do this in remembrance of me. The Lord's Table is a means of grace. Let it be a means of grace to us and not a means of judgment.