Holding Forth the Word

Today I’d like to take a brief look at the origins of the Lord’s Table. This act of worship and remembrance obviously goes back to the very start of the church that Christ planted on Earth. But it never hurts to review the origins and reaffirm why we perform this observance faithfully – roughly 2000 years after Christ first established it. The following study I would like to share with you is simply a reminder of why and how it is observed, according to Scripture.

And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and brake it, and gave it to the disciples, and said, Take, eat; this is My body. And He took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, Drink ye all of it; For this is My blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins. But I say unto you, I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine, until that day when I drink it new with you in My Father's kingdom. And when they had sung an hymn, they went out into the mount of Olives. (Matthew 26:26-30)

We can see that the Lord and the disciples were meeting for the Passover meal. The Passover was actually a type, in the Old Testament, of the Messiah’s atoning for the sins of mankind.

The first thing that came to my attention when studying the Lord’s Table is that the unbeliever in the room, Judas Iscariot, was thrust from their presence prior to the Lord breaking bread. Though Matthew doesn’t record it specifically we can compare with the account in John and see how it came about.

Jesus answered, he it is, to whom I shall give a sop, when I have dipped it. [A “sop” is literally a “morsel”, usually bread, and dipped in a dish or wine.] And when He had dipped the sop, He gave it to Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon. 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, Buy those things that we have need of against the feast; or, that he should give something to the poor. He then having received the sop went immediately out: and it was night. (John 13:26-30)

Because we read in Matthew as well as the gospel of Mark that Christ and Judas had this exchange prior to the Lord’s Table and then in John we see that Judas “went immediately out”, we can safely discern that the Lord made sure that there were no unbelievers at the table when He performed the Lord’s Table for the first time. So we see that, to the Lord Jesus, it was important that Judas not partake of this meal, as his heart was not right with God. From this example it appears obvious that the Lord’s supper is not something to be shared with the world at large – it is a special observance for the body of Christ alone.

On a side note: People sometimes ask why we use plain, unleavened biscuits or bread. The reason unleavened bread was used is that leaven is a type, a picture if you will of sin. One place in the Old Testament that we see this is in the offerings of the tabernacle which pointed to Christ’s work on the cross. It shall not be baken with leaven. I have given it unto them for their portion of My offerings made by fire; it is most holy, as is the sin offering, and as the trespass offering. (Leviticus 6:17)

Then Jesus said unto them, Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees. (Matthew 16:6)

Leaven is clearly a type or picture of sin. Jesus clearly tells us that the bread symbolizes His body. And when He had given thanks, he brake it, and said, Take, eat: this is My body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of Me. (1 Corinthians 11:24)

Jesus was sinless - For He hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. (2 Corinthians 5:21)

Leaven pictures sin - Bread pictures Jesus' Body Leavened bread would picture Christ as a sinner. Unleavened bread pictures Christ as being sinless. So if we used leavened bread, then we would be picturing the Lord as having sin. So we see even the type of bread that we use is important to picture the death of The Lord correctly. We must picture Him as sinless.

That being said, it is important to note that we should not make a legalistic approach to this subject. Many people would contend that fermentation in the wine Christ would have used also can be used as a picture of sin or imperfection. As there is no specific commandment in the New Testament to use unleavened bread at the Lord’s Table, we should not make this a point of contention with those who differ in belief. We DO have the Lord’s own example to follow and He used the unleavened bread from the Passover meal.

In Matthew 26:26 we note, first of all, that Christ blessed the bread, broke it and passed it to His disciples. The underlying significance is something that we can easily overlook. The significance of this is that Christ was literally blessing His body being tortured and destroyed in one of the most grotesque ways possible!

In my studying I came across an excellent quote that I will share with you regarding this very thing:
“ How amazing it is that Jesus blessed the bread and gave thanks for it! Jesus, Son of the living God, with full knowledge of the torture that lay ahead of Him, actually gave thanks for the breaking of His body. Just a few hours hence His enemies were going to hammer His holy hands to a tree—yet he gave thanks. They were going to take His feet, which had walked many weary miles in the service of the sons of men, and nail them to a cross – yet He gave thanks. His bruised and broken body was to be bowed beneath the weight of the whole world’s sin – yet He gave thanks! ”

Next the Lord blessed the cup and encouraged the disciples to drink it. And again the significance of this event can be easily lost on us! The pure and sinless blood of Christ was to be shed on the cross. His agony would be beyond human comprehension—still he gave thanks! He gave thanks because He saw beyond the tears, beyond the torment, beyond the anguish and pain to the great multitude, from all walks of life, through all ages of time. He could see them, restored, ransomed, forgiven, healed and washed in His blood, saved from their sins forever. He could see them singing and worshipping God and indwelt by His Spirit for eternity! So He gave thanks for His blood which He would soon shed and the symbol of it, which He shared with His disciples.

Finally, we should note that throughout this entire meal Christ was acting through the joy of serving God, His Father. In Matthew 26:30 it says: “And when they had sung an hymn, they went out into the mount of Olives.” This hymn would have been one of the Passover hymns from the “Great Hallel” or Hallelujah Psalms. The Psalms sung at the end of Passover, which is what they had just celebrated, would have been Psalms 115-118. These Psalms are full of rejoicing in the salvation of God and His promises and blessings. Christ, as He was preparing to be sacrificed for our sins, may have sung with rejoicing the words from Psalm 118:28-29: “Thou art my God, and I will praise thee: thou art my God, I will exalt thee. O give thanks unto the LORD; for He is good: for His mercy endureth for ever.”

Posted by Daniel Van Nattan at 9:49 PM | 0 comments  

Here are some notes from a study I did on "Holding forth the word of life"-- From the verse that spawned my blog's title.

1.) We are to hold forth the word of life to a dying world where death and spiritual darkness are virtually everywhere.
a.) "Death metal" music is a prime example of the exact polar opposite of the Word of life.
b.) Real life is something found in Jesus Christ alone. The world will try to counterfeit this everywhere constantly by providing substitutes that make people believe they are filling their empty void with happiness or meaningful purpose.
c.) Life is found in the Word of God and the Lord Jesus. Thus making it the word of life.

2.) "Hold forth" has often been used as a military term. This is far from the only military term Paul uses. He mentions many military style attitudes and terms throughout his writings. This represents a strong stand against a frontal attack. It shows no wavering or backing down and the implication is that you cannot hold forth in a half-hearted manner.
a.) The frontal attack is the attacks of Satan. He is the one who spreads a net for the feet of saints to try to snare them in his traps and thus hinder or halt their efforts to hold forth the Word of life in the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the one who hurls fiery darts at the buckler we are told to carry in our spiritual warfare against evil. Holding forth the word, the sword of the spirit (Ephesians 6:17), gives us our weapon of attack on Satan's accusations and snares (I Timothy 6:9, Revelation 12:9-10).

3.) "The word of life" is coupled with shining as lights in verse 15. Light shines in darkness and shows no mercy to the darkness but quickly overcomes it.
Romans 13:12 The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light.
a.) We need not be ashamed of the light we bear or the word of life we hold forth.
Romans 10:11 For the scripture saith, Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed.
b.) Christ is the light we shine forth. He is the Word and we shine forth that word of faith to all those around us. His Word IS the very essence of light which we hold forth in the stark darkness of the world and its pagan lusts.
Philippians 2:15 That ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world;

4.) We must have and maintain a good testimony to not hamper efforts to shine & hold forth the Word!
Philippians 2:14-15 Do all things without murmurings and disputings:
a.) The entire command to "hold forth" seems to hinge on verses 14 and 15 (see above). You cannot hope to hold forth what you believe or preach if you cannot maintain a testimony which shows the Lord's Word of life as the light of the world!

Challenge: Are you holding forth the Word of life and giving off the distinct, hopeful light of the Lord Jesus Christ? If not, why not?

God bless!

Posted by Daniel Van Nattan at 6:52 AM | 1 comments  

I'm a pretty terrible blogger. My wife has been telling me that I need to keep my blog fresh and interesting (i.e. updating it more than once a week, I presume).
For someone who envisioned himself a non-blogger from the start, I'm not doing too bad. :)

Life here in Australia has been interesting. This evening the "reserve" (a park with out any amenities of any sort-- not even a gate or pathway) had some illustrious characters in it. Upon my first assessment of their situation I had thought they were hurling insults at passing vehicles from atop the fence that runs around the outskirts of the reserve. This unremarkable fence is the only thing of any significance in the reserve with the exception of some beautiful trees. I believe that they would have found the trees a bit of a lesser quality perch from which to projectile their remarks at innocent drivers-by. After observing their methods for a moment or two I was favoured with a wind which blew their words distinctly to my ears. Such language should be outlawed! I do believe their exact words were: "Merry Christmas!!" and this was followed up by raucous laughter and what I can only assume was intended as hilarity.

That brings me to an interesting point... what is Christmas and where did it REALLY come from, anyway??
Here's an interesting article on the subject. The article is not very long and shouldn't monopolize too much of your time, so please do give it a read. If nothing else it might make you cranky at me. But as in most of these situations, you must first get cranky before you open your mind to the possibility that you have been foolish in celebrating a devilish "holiday".
Here's a excerpt that you might find particularly picante:

...within the Christian Church no such festival as Christmas was ever heard of till the third century, and...not till the fourth century was far advanced did it gain much observance. How, then, did the Romish Church fix on December 25th as Christmas-day? Why, thus: Long before the fourth century, and long before the Christian era itself, a festival was celebrated among the heathen, at that precise time of the year, in honour of the birth of the son of the Babylonian queen of heaven; and it may fairly be presumed that, in order to conciliate the heathen, and to swell the number of nominal adherents of Christianity, the same festival was adopted by the Roman Church, giving it the name of Christ." (2) In pagan Rome, the celebration of the Winter Solstice began on December 17 with the feast of Saturn -- also called the Saturnalia. Through December 23rd, the Roman world engaged in merrymaking and the exchanging of gifts in honor of Saturn, the god of sowing and husbandry and, according to a Rosicrucian source, to commemorate a future Golden Age of Saturn:

Interesting stuff, huh?? Well check it out!
The good thing about this article is that the author actually backs up his claims with solid research which he cites as any good author should.

Enjoy your holidays... But certainly don't have a merry Christmas!

Now if that didn't make you mad... THIS will!
I've noticed that FAR too many people love C.S. Lewis, but most people do not have even the foggiest clue as to the man's true character! They do not know that he said that Biblical prophecies were false and that he also worked sun worship, drug abuse and other henieous elements into his books.
Want a good read? Check THIS out!
And for good measure, another quote:

While many of us have been deceived by this man's apparent spiritual insight, he actually believed many doctrines of devils and by the end of his life was rapidly embracing Roman Catholicism and Taoism. Indeed, he may have been a Catholic for some time before his death. He believed in purgatory and prayed for the dead. He went to a priest regularly for confession (C.S. Lewis: A Biography , p. 198). He received the sacrament of extreme unction on July, 16th, 1963 (p. 301), a sacrament that was officially ministered only to Roman Catholics at that time. It is enough to cause one to wonder if whether he was a "plant" for the Catholic church all along, or merely a mixed up man groping for some hope of salvation at the end of his life.

Enjoy... until next time...

Posted by Daniel Van Nattan at 3:03 AM | 1 comments  

Well this is my first post. I've never really blogged before. Never really thought that it was something I'd do, either. But I guess times change and as they do, so do those individuals involved-- myself no exception.

On the 29th of Oct I lost my job at TravelEdge. They made my position redundant because of the economic unrest that everyone is going through right now.
Thankfully my employer gave me a nice severance package that provided us with the funds we needed to survive for approx. 6 weeks. Obviously it's been over a month now and we're rapidly closing in on that 6 week limit! The scary thing about that is that, although I have applied for numerous jobs around the area, I have no prospects of work on the horizon. Thankfully I know that God, our Heavenly Father, will provide for my job need when He's ready.
As you can imagine we have some trepidation as we try to make sure that the money we have stretches far enough to meet the needs for as long as possible!

To demonstrate how God takes care of His own: About a week ago or so a lady from the church fellowship we attend gave my wife a call. She was asking questions about how we were doing and Clara, my beautiful wife, confided in her how things were going. She said that next time we were out their way to drop in and she'd have some "bits and pieces" for us.
We dropped in, as requested, a couple of days ago. To our surprise we had a substantial stack of groceries bestowed upon us! Needless to say we felt very humbled by God's grace and the generosity of those who had contributed from the church fellowship! Then the lady handed us a stack of envelopes and explained that people had given as a group and some others had given individually as they felt they were able. We were shocked and in awe and I believe we may have even shed a tear or two of thankfulness! God's grace and mercy is truly unsurpassed.
What we found in the envelopes was enough cash to cover a substantial number of expenses!

What we learned that day was to completely trust the Lord. I have been personally having a struggle with faith in God's provision and plan for our lives. This is simply because I'm the kind of person who wants to have a constant, steady job to provide for my family with. But I've been sadly remiss in remembering that I'm also part of God's family and that He is also highly concerned with providing for His family! As the One who created us and the world we live in, there is never any reason to doubt that He can and will provide, regardless of whether or not we have these lovely things called "dollars" in our pocket or not.

Remember this: When things don't look like they are going right, cast your trust, hope and faith completely and utterly upon God. He is your Father and He is very concerned for your well being. There is no reason to doubt His care or concern for your well being!

Psalms 37:23-27 The steps of a good man are ordered by the LORD: and he delighteth in his way. Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down: for the LORD upholdeth him with his hand. I have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread. He is ever merciful, and lendeth; and his seed is blessed. Depart from evil, and do good; and dwell for evermore.

Posted by Daniel Van Nattan at 9:39 PM | 1 comments