Tony Evans - Taking Communion Seriously

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
I've shared before on occasion when my youngest son, Jonathan
was eleven or twelve years old, and came to my
office and said that come down to the gym in
the Family Life Center. I want to show you something.
So I went to him with the gym, and what

(00:22):
do you wanna show me? He said, I want you
to see me dunk the basketball. I said, that's interesting.
So he got the basketball, dribbled it a few times,
and grabbed it, ran up, and eleven twelve years old
dunked the basketball. Very impressive, except for one thing. He
had got in the custodian to lower the gold. In

(00:48):
other words, he lowered the standard and made a dunk.
I got the custodian to raise the standard to what
its position ought to be and tell him, okay, I
see what you did, but the idea is to get
to ten feet, not to make ten feet six feet,

(01:09):
to rise and raise to the standard. Israel had lowered
the standard, was dunking the worship ball and was excited
that they were dunking at a lower standard.

Speaker 2 (01:26):
God comes on.

Speaker 1 (01:27):
The scene in Malachan and says, I'm not impressed. I'm
not impressed that you can worship dunk at six feet
when the goal is ten. He says in verse eleven,
I'm a great king. I'm not you know, I'm not
your ordinary king. I am in a class all by myself.

(01:53):
The highest office in our land as the presidency of
the United States. We talked about that on last time.
And there's only position for one person in that office.
God says, there's only a place for one God in
this universe, and you are not he. I am a
great king. In fact, I am so great that one

(02:18):
day all the nations of the earth are going to
burn incense to me and there will be comprehensive cosmic recognition.
I am in a class all by myself, But in
the meantime, I'm chosen you Israel. The Book of Malachi
is real to get a head start on everybody else

(02:42):
in recognizing my greatness. The Book of Malachi, as we
continue to unfold, it is a book of questions and complaints.
The people are complaining God is nowhere near, he can't
be found, he's not blessing them, he's not taking care
of them. And we still going to church, we're still

(03:03):
worshiping you, and you're not coming through for us. We
don't get it. And God's complaint back is the reason
you're not seeing me is you're dunking at a lower standard.
That is, you're not giving me what my name calls for.
You're just giving me what you want. And even that

(03:25):
your governor wouldn't take lambs that are blind and lambs
that can't walk and riddled with cancer, and you bringing
them and offering them. And you don't understand why I'm
not all that excited about you showing up a church
so that I can receive your leftovers. I am a

(03:47):
great king. They want to know what are we doing wrong? Well,
in addition to the leftover worship that they were giving him,
he says in verse twelve, something that I want to
focus on today, He.

Speaker 2 (04:04):
Says, in verse twelve, for you.

Speaker 1 (04:05):
Say that the table of the Lord is despised.

Speaker 2 (04:13):
The table of the Lord.

Speaker 1 (04:14):
You either I hear you. I hear what you say,
and you say, why we gotta do this? Now? Let
me tell you what the table of the Lord is,
or was back in Malachi's day.

Speaker 2 (04:29):
It was the altar. It was the altar.

Speaker 1 (04:34):
All the altar is where they sacrifice the animals to God.
They would slit the throat of the lamb or the
sheep or whatever was being sacrificed.

Speaker 2 (04:44):
Drain the blood.

Speaker 1 (04:45):
And it was like a methy They had to kill
this animal, and they said, Oh, we gotta do this again.
We gotta cut the throat, we gotta we gotta drain
the blood, we gotta offer the sacrifice.

Speaker 2 (04:56):
He even said.

Speaker 1 (04:57):
They goes on to say in this passage, I see
you sniffing at it. Go on, shure, we gotta smell
this stuff again. And then he said, and you say,
how tiresome it is. Oh, we gotta go there again.
We gotta do this sacrifice again. We gotta drain this
blood again, again, again again. He says, I know what

(05:23):
you're thinking, I know what you're saying, and I know
how you feel. Why is God upset? If I can
use that word at their complaint about the table the altar?
What was it about this table that they should not

(05:47):
been complaining about. In fact, they should have been excited
about the table, but instead they were weary about the table.
Let's talk a little theology for a moment. God is transcendent.
Transcendent simply says that he sits outside of his creation.

(06:11):
Now he is involved with his creation he's imminent, but
he is transcendent. I mean, that's pretty spectacular. That God
is greater than the sum total of everything he's made,
and he's made the universe, which is why when you
get to heaven, it'll take you an eternity to learn
about him, because there is no end to him, because he's.

Speaker 2 (06:34):
Greater than everything as we made him.

Speaker 1 (06:36):
We can't even get to the end of our galaxy,
more or less the whole universe. He is greater than
the sum total of what he's made. He's a great king.

Speaker 2 (06:45):
Now. At the core of his.

Speaker 1 (06:49):
Transcendence is his holiness, that is his uniqueness. Everything about
him is distinct from anything else.

Speaker 2 (06:59):
The problem occurs.

Speaker 1 (07:01):
Is that when sin entered the picture, it created a
blockage between the transcendent God and man. Because one of
the things about God that is holy is his righteousness,
that is his separation from sin.

Speaker 2 (07:19):
So this transcendent.

Speaker 1 (07:21):
God could not have fellowship with sinful man. Going all
the way back to Adam and Eve and all the
way forward, God's transcendent righteousness could not interact in a
meaningful way with sinful men because guess what, he does
not lower the standard. He can't It would be against

(07:42):
his character to lower the standard. So what God did
was come up with a way where sinful men could
remake contact with him. And the way he did it
was by setting up, in the Old Testament.

Speaker 2 (07:58):
A sacrificial system.

Speaker 1 (08:01):
And the goal of the sacrificial system was to create
a substitute because sin had to be addressed, but because
God loved man, he came up with a way to
address it by creating a substitutional sacrificial system where you
could offer an animal on behalf of the people, and

(08:23):
the death of the animal would serve as a temporary
solution to the blockage between transcendent, righteous, holy God and
sinful man. Now, the reason that that sacrificial system was
critical was because it freed God up to bring to

(08:47):
people the provisions of its covenant.

Speaker 2 (08:51):
He got to stay with me here, we're going somewhere. Now.

Speaker 1 (08:54):
I can't get into the covenant today. The covenant comes
in next week, sermon. So y'all come back man here.
You'll see the word covenant in chapter two repeated. So
we won't get into that. But I won't just introduce
it by saying this. I mentioned it last week. Deuteronomy
twenty nine to nine Covenants are designed to bring blessings.

Speaker 2 (09:14):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (09:15):
So a covenant is an arrangement through which God flows
to bring you what God has planned for you. That's
a covenant. And everybody wants to be blessed. But here's
the problem. Everybody wants to be blessed without necessarily being
under the covenant.

Speaker 2 (09:31):
All right, So stay with me.

Speaker 1 (09:34):
God made a covenant, an agreement and arrangement with Israel,
and it.

Speaker 2 (09:39):
Was a covenant of blessing.

Speaker 1 (09:42):
But God could not fulfill what he wanted to fulfill
unless he dealt with the problem of sin, because He
was transcendent and holy and righteous and man was sinful.
So he set up a system to temporarily deal with sin.
I call it the Old Testament the layaway plan, okay,

(10:04):
because it only provided a temporary payment.

Speaker 2 (10:06):
It wasn't a permanent payment. The payment had to go
on all the time.

Speaker 1 (10:11):
The big day was the day of atonement, when they
would take a goat and they would kill the goat,
and then the priests would come and lay his hands
on the second goat, called the scapegoat, and then they
would take the scapegoat out the nation to signify the
sins of the nation were being removed so God would
be free to operate within its covenant for Israel. Sometimes
the scapegoat would wonder back end camp, so they get
a little shepherd board to take it out and push

(10:33):
it off the cliff. The Greek word for that is apoleutrosis,
pushed off, never to show up again, all right. So
they had to go through this routine because of God's
unique relationship through the crafting of a substitute, in order
to free God up to do for the people what

(10:54):
God had promised to do. The Book of Malachi is
their complaint, and you'll see it come up because they
got locust problems. They won't go away, that their economy
is in wrecked, the families are in disaster, you know.

Speaker 2 (11:09):
In other words, America. They got all this stuff.

Speaker 1 (11:13):
Going wrong, and they want to know why God not
blessing them, why God's not showing up for them, why
God's not coming through for them. While they say the
table of the Lord is.

Speaker 2 (11:30):
Despised, I'm tired of this.

Speaker 1 (11:33):
Well, what they did not understand was if it weren't
for the table, if it wasn't for the sacrificial system,
you could have no contact with God.

Speaker 2 (11:45):
That the contact with God was tied.

Speaker 1 (11:47):
To the table, and when there was no table, when
there was no system operating that free the transcending God
from interacting imminently with with with sinful men, that you
would now be subject to the consequences. Watch this of
the absence of God from your life and from your nation.

Speaker 2 (12:11):
So when they.

Speaker 1 (12:11):
Remove themselves from the table or despise the table by
lowering the standards, that allowed, as you'll see referred to
a number of times in the book, the curse to come,
that is the negative repercussions of sinful men having a
blockage that's not linking them to God. He says, you

(12:35):
are tired of something that's the source of your life.
You're tired of something that's keeping you in contact with Me.
You're tired of something that's keeping the covenant on your behalf.
You're tired of something that's keeping the curse away. You're
tired of something that is responsible for the blessing, the flow.
You should be excited every time you have to do

(12:58):
this nasty job, because this nasty job is the way.

Speaker 2 (13:02):
You're gonna be delivered preserved, heal freed.

Speaker 1 (13:05):
This nasty job is the thing that keeps me linked
to you because I can't LOLd my standard, but I.

Speaker 2 (13:11):
Can't accept the substitute.

Speaker 1 (13:16):
I will accept the substitute, but I can't change the
rules of the game.

Speaker 2 (13:20):
That's the covenant.

Speaker 1 (13:22):
So here's there saying I am a great king. You
should be excited. I know you don't like it. I
know it's bloody. I know you know it doesn't smell
good when the meat's cooking on the altar.

Speaker 2 (13:33):
I know that is inconvenience.

Speaker 1 (13:36):
But if you could ever see what this thing could
do for you, if you took this table seriously, you
wouldn't complain. You'd be hopscotching and flipping and jumping and
jerking to get to that table because that table was
transforming in nature.

Speaker 2 (13:53):
Now we now flip to the New Testament.

Speaker 1 (14:01):
The division in the Bible is between the Old Testament
and the New Testament, or let's put it in another way,
between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant. The Bible
is divided by covenants, that is, by arrangements that God has.
He had an arrangement in the Old Testament, the Old
Covenant with Israel. He has an arrangement in the New Testament,

(14:26):
the New Covenant with the Church.

Speaker 2 (14:29):
Both covenants have a table.

Speaker 1 (14:32):
So what you do is you filter Old Testament principle
to New Testament theology teaching. So I want to use
the Old Testament principle and take a trip to the
New Testament table, because the principle is carried forth covenantally.

(14:53):
That is the principle that it is the table that
frees God up to move on your behalf, and it
is the despising of the table that removed God from
being able to move on your behalf.

Speaker 2 (15:06):
In other words, some of us aren't.

Speaker 1 (15:09):
Benefiting from the Covenant because we have the same view
as in Malachi about the table.

Speaker 2 (15:17):
Their view of the table was I'm sick of this.

Speaker 1 (15:22):
God's view was if you only knew what that table meant.
You up there complaining about the thing that's designed to
solve your problem, to bring you deliverance and to give
you victory.

Speaker 2 (15:35):
So let's turn our bibles to First Corinthians.

Speaker 1 (15:37):
Chapter ten, and let's look at the table a little
bit closer.

Speaker 2 (15:43):
And then we're going to look at it a little.

Speaker 1 (15:44):
Bit closer than that. First Corinthians chapter ten. The Bible
says that the Old Testament was written for our example.
It gives us a framework. Now, he says in First Corinthians,
chapter ten, these words, he says, beginning in verse sixteen,

(16:12):
is not the cup of blessing which we bless.

Speaker 2 (16:15):
A sharing in the blood of Christ.

Speaker 1 (16:19):
Is not the bread which we break, a sharing in
the body of Christ. He's talking about communion, and he says,
when you break the bread, you share in the body.
When you drink the cup, you share in the blood.

Speaker 2 (16:43):
There is a sharing of the person. Body in blood
is the whole person.

Speaker 1 (16:49):
When you commune with me, you're not just eating bread
and drinking a cup.

Speaker 2 (16:53):
You're sharing a life. Okay.

Speaker 1 (16:56):
So yeah, you got a piece of bread and you
got a cup. But with the bread and the cup,
you're actually entering into the life.

Speaker 2 (17:06):
So okay.

Speaker 1 (17:06):
So it's not just in Malachi they said this, I'm
tired of this ritual. In Caribbeans, they were tired of
the same ritual because in both Testaments they lost sight
of the meeting. They thought, well, we're just going through her.
I said, okay, we gotta do this. Okay, give me
a b give me the coup. Paul in Corinthians said,

(17:28):
you'd have missed it. You are sharing the life. Now,
why do you need to know that when you take communion,
you're sharing the life. First Corinthians, Chapter ten. Let's go
down a few verses, and let's look and see verse
twenty one. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord

(17:49):
and the cup of demons you cannot partake of. Watch this,
the table of the Lord and the table of demons.
Oh do you know what we just discovered? There are
two tables. There are two tables. A table is the
place where you eat. He says, the Lord has a table,

(18:13):
and demons have a table. He's writing to Christians and
he says, you Christians at corinth are trying to eat
at two tables.

Speaker 2 (18:28):
On Sunday. Like in the Old Testament.

Speaker 1 (18:30):
On Saturday, you come to the Lord's table, fussing and cussing.

Speaker 2 (18:35):
The table is tiring.

Speaker 1 (18:38):
But then you go out and you mix it up
with the pagans and you go to another table because
there are two tables. Remember, the purpose of the table
is to share the life.

Speaker 2 (18:53):
Watch this now.

Speaker 1 (18:55):
So the first thing you need to know is that
in the New Testament Church there were demons.

Speaker 2 (19:00):
He says, there are demons.

Speaker 1 (19:02):
Okay, there's the Lord, but there is this unseen power
force called demons.

Speaker 2 (19:08):
You wrestle not against.

Speaker 1 (19:09):
Flesh and blood, but principal these powers, and we're forces
that are demonic in nature, and they actually invite you
to have dinner with them. Why do demons invite you
to have dinner.

Speaker 2 (19:21):
With them so that they can share their life with you?
Stick with me.

Speaker 1 (19:25):
Now, the Lord has a table, and we said the
cup of blessing, the bread the body is to share
the life. He says, there are two tables there. The
Lord offers you his table. Now here's what you need
to know. Many of the problems we have.

Speaker 2 (19:49):
Are not merely.

Speaker 1 (19:50):
Problems because of the problems, but because of the demon
notation of the problem. In other words, the problem is
made wor because demons have adopted the problem. So you're
not just battling the problem, you're battling the demonization of
the problem, which is why the problem won't go away,

(20:10):
because demons keep it coming back. You think the problem
is only the problem, when the problem is that at
the table you happen to be sitting at, the liars
of the demons have joined the problem. So the problem
is in control by demonic influence. So to fix the problem,
you can't just fix the problem. You gotta fix the

(20:32):
demon's engagement with the problem, he says, because at this
table demons are involved. It's not just the issue, it's
the sharing of the life. What many Christians don't understand
is that while you may eat at the Lord's table
on Sunday, if you switch tables, you get to share

(20:56):
the life of the demons. So we're actually battling the problem.
We're battling the things we see, not the demons that
have entered into the things we see. So we're not
battling the thing that we really need to get rid of.
And that's why it either doesn't go away or it
keeps coming back.

Speaker 2 (21:15):
Look, if you happen.

Speaker 1 (21:16):
To see I know you don't have this in your houses,
But if you happen to see a roach, you stop
on a roach, it's gone kind of because behind the
wall a niece's nephews, uncles, aunts, and cousins. Unless you

(21:37):
get the organ man who gets behind what you see
to deal with what you can't see, all you've done
is temporarily resolve the problem that's.

Speaker 2 (21:49):
Gonna return tomorrow. There are demons behind the wall.

Speaker 1 (21:54):
So just because you stop on your issue today won't
solve it, because there's a new replace. This meant tomorrow,
because you've not addressed the influence of the table. Because
you share the life. Okay, it is the sharing of
the life that's the issue. It's not the eating of

(22:15):
the bread or the drinking of the cup.

Speaker 2 (22:17):
He says.

Speaker 1 (22:17):
We share his life with the bread and share his
life with the corp. But wait a minute, I thought
I'm already saved. If I'm already saved, I'm not already
sharing his life.

Speaker 2 (22:28):
Well, yes and no.

Speaker 1 (22:33):
If you're married, you are sharing the life of somebody,
and somebody sharing your life because you are legally sharing
it because you've got married. But we all know you
can be both married and miserable. Some of you know
what I'm talking about. You can be both married and miserable.

(22:53):
In other words, you can have the legal.

Speaker 2 (22:55):
Sharing without the relational sharing.

Speaker 1 (22:59):
Now, and a couple is physically intimate, sexually intimate, they
are now sharing life at another level. Okay, you are
sharing life simply because you're married. That's legal sharing. But
sexual intimacy is a sharing of life because you are

(23:23):
sharing one another at a more intimate, intense level. Now,
so you can be relationally connected without intimately connected. A
lot of Christians are relationally legally saved without being intimately
connected with the sharing of Jesus's life. So not to

(23:46):
be crude here, but Jesus Christ is inviting you out
of the kitchen into the bedroom to share.

Speaker 2 (23:54):
His life at another level.

Speaker 1 (23:57):
Because these people are already saying he's talking to but
he's telling them that there's this other table, and this
other table wants to share their life with you too.
They want to share that life with you too. But
the problem is this other table is demons, and so
they want your life. They want to give you their life.
Why don't we share laughs together, Why don't we hang

(24:18):
out together, Let's share life.

Speaker 2 (24:21):
But with their life comes sin.

Speaker 1 (24:23):
So there is a table, and the table is tied
to the Covenant. Ah turn over one page the first
Grindions eleven, talking about the table, Verse twenty three the

(24:44):
first Grindions eleven. For I have received from the Lord
that which I also delivered to you. That the Lord Jesus,
in the night in which he was portrayed, took bread,
and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said,
this is my body, which is for you.

Speaker 2 (25:05):
Do this in remembrance of me.

Speaker 1 (25:07):
And in the same way, He took the cup and
after supper said, this cup is the new It is
covenant of in my blood. Do this as often as
you drink it in remembrance of me. And then here
is the wop of verse twenty six. For as often
as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you

(25:27):
proclaim the Lord's death.

Speaker 2 (25:30):
Till he comes. I'll watch this. Remember ten. Communion is
the sharing.

Speaker 1 (25:39):
Of the life, not just the exercise of the act.
It's the sharing of life. The Old Testament had a
temporary plan. It was the table, the sacrificial system. But
when Jesus Christ came, John the Baptis says in John
Chapter one, behold the lamb of God, which takes the

(26:00):
way the sins of the world. He came up with
the permanent payment. When Jesus died on the cross, he
said to tell us die. The Greek word means paid
in full, or it is finished. In other words, no
more payment needed. On the cross, all sin for all
mankind was completely and permanently paid for, to be realized

(26:24):
by anyone who comes and places their faith in the
finished work of Jesus Christ for their salvation.

Speaker 2 (26:30):
Now watch this, when.

Speaker 1 (26:33):
A person comes to Christ they are forgiven, experientially forgiven
for their sins. Now we got that, we got that.
If you're saved, you got that. Okay, I've been forgiven
for my sins. But Hell is still messing with me.
Hell is still messing with me, and it messes with

(26:54):
me in a lot of different ways. It messes with
me with my money, It messes with me with my mind,
It messes with me in health is.

Speaker 2 (27:00):
It messes with me and Hell.

Speaker 1 (27:02):
Is See the problem is we see problems but don't
see the Hell attachment. You see, well, we'll be up
to our nose in debt illegitimate debt, but not connected
with demonic activity and money.

Speaker 2 (27:20):
We won't connect it.

Speaker 1 (27:21):
We don't. We don't connect Hell with it, and Hell
doesn't want you to connect it with it, because then
you might do something about it. As long as he
can just make you stare at the problem and not
see the Hell connection, the table that you're actually sharing
the life's hell in the area of finance and ariage
of relationships, or an area of sexual urage or whatever.
If you don't see the spiritual, then you're gonna miss

(27:42):
how to deal with the thing you think is the
real problem. He says on the cross. Here it is
now on the cross Colossians two fifteen. You don't have
to turn there. But Colossians two fifteen says that on
the cross Jesus defeated the devil and put him to
open shame. It says, publicly disgraced him. In the spiritual.

Speaker 2 (28:06):
Realm all the cross. Not only were sins.

Speaker 1 (28:10):
Not only were sins defeated, The devil was defeated.

Speaker 2 (28:15):
Okay, and watch this. The devil was defeated.

Speaker 1 (28:21):
You and I no longer have to sit at his table,
although we constantly get invitations to join him for dinner.
And he is defeated, freeing God up to work his
covenant on your behalf. God is now freed up by
the death of Christ.

Speaker 2 (28:41):
But watch this, but only if you're at his table.

Speaker 1 (28:45):
So he comes up with this table called we call
it communion. It's the table of the Lord, the Lord's supper.
And here's what he says. This is where all this
is going. This is my body. Verse twenty four cents
is which is broken for you do this in remembrance
of me.

Speaker 2 (29:03):
Now watch this.

Speaker 1 (29:04):
Verse twenty three says that when he called them together,
he gave thanks.

Speaker 2 (29:08):
Then wait, a minute.

Speaker 1 (29:09):
I don't get that he can ready to die and
he given thanks. What is he giving thanks for? He says,
I'm giving thanks because.

Speaker 2 (29:18):
This is broken for you.

Speaker 1 (29:21):
The reason I'm giving thanks is because what is gonna
do for you. It's gonna do something for you. That's
why the communion is called the eucharists or the giving
of thanks, Because at the time you take communion, you
should be more thankful than any other time. You should
be more thankful than the sermon you hear, or the
song you like, or the building you're in, because none

(29:43):
of that defeated Satan. My sermons can't defeat Satan. They
singers can't defeat Satan. They can teach, they can inspire,
but they have no power in and of themselves. But communion,
for what you really are to get thanks for, is
the thing that.

Speaker 2 (30:03):
Should send you through the gazoo.

Speaker 1 (30:06):
Why because of what he says in verse twenty six.
For as often as you eat this bread and drink
this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.
Proclaim his death to who about? What what am I proclaiming? Okay,
you give me the bread, you give me the cup,

(30:27):
But it says you're doing more than taking.

Speaker 2 (30:28):
The bread and cup.

Speaker 1 (30:29):
It says you're preaching a sermon, But I'm preaching a
sermon to who about what. Here's the good news of communion.
Communion is not merely taking bread and drinking cup.

Speaker 2 (30:42):
It's sharing Christ's life.

Speaker 1 (30:44):
When you share Christ's life, you get to preach a
sermon to who. You get to preach a sermon to
the demons, because it's the demons that are your problem,
because they got this competing table around communion. You'll get
to say to hell or to the devil, what you

(31:04):
want to say to people.

Speaker 2 (31:05):
Go to hell.

Speaker 1 (31:10):
You literally have permission around the table to tell the
demon and the devil or go to hell comes that's
stay home, you death, tell them go back home. In
other words, communion is the place of covenantal authority. You
won't get it in a sermon, you won't get it
in a song, but you will get it at the

(31:32):
Lord's table. Because he says, there you get to proclaim
my death. What didn't my death do Colossians two fifteen.
It put the devil under your feet, It defeated him.
The reason he has more victory than he ought to
have in our lives is we're not sharing Christ's life.

(31:52):
We have legal marriage without intimate relationship. And he says
the place you get that is that the table, which
he says, that's why, he says, and as often as
you do it, he doesn't tell you how much to
do it here, it is as often as you need it. See,
that's it it. So if the devil, if the devil's

(32:15):
busting you up weekly, you better take it weekly to
see people say, well, I take camillion once a month. Well, look,
if he's jacking you off, that's too big a gap
to not have power. So he says, as often as
you do this, you proclaim to Hell the victory of

(32:35):
my death. We would have less victory if we spend
more time at his table. Now we offer it every
week here. We don't expect that everybody's gonna take it
every week. But if you need, if if Hell is
telling you what to do, controlling your mind, your emotion,
your health, your money, your attitude, your relations to your action,
he says, that's cause you don't take my table. Seriously,

(32:57):
do this and remembrance of me. I'm not talking about
quiet organ music, and you're picturing across number one. He
not on the cross anymore. What he's saying is what
I did two thousand years for you on cavalry. You
can bring up to today because there is not power in.

Speaker 2 (33:16):
The juice, but there's power in the blood.

Speaker 1 (33:19):
And if you bring my life back up to you
today and share my life in communion, you get to
tell the devil where to go. He goes on to
the next verse and says, but if anyone takes it unworthily.
The word worth he doesn't mean you're sinless. He means illegitimate.
He says, if anyone takes it illegitimately, that is like

(33:42):
Malachi was taking it.

Speaker 2 (33:44):
Just ritual routine.

Speaker 1 (33:45):
Let me do it because they passing it illegitimately. He
makes a statement here, many people understand, he says, many
a weak, many are sick, and some are dead die
before that time. Weakness means you're being overcome by your circumstances.
Sickness can be physical sickness, emotional sickness. Sickness is undie early.

(34:07):
Why is all this negative stuff happening when I don't
take it legitimately? Because the demons are allowed to have
their way with sinning your life. And so when he
has his way of sinning your life, you might wind
up what he is. If he has his way with
sinning your life, you might wind up having a mental breakdown.
If he has his way with sinning your life, you
might wind up getting divorced. If he has his way
with sinning your life, you won't mind up living a

(34:29):
life or misery because he's having his wife. It's not
that God is putting all this on you. It's that
because you do not take his table seriously, you're not
getting the benefits of the table, so that the devil
is able to have his way with you.

Speaker 2 (34:47):
In a in a.

Speaker 1 (34:56):
At thirty minutes ago, thirty minutes ago, thirty minutes ago,
a game. A game started thirty minutes ago, right, a game.
I'm just surprised nobody had gotten nothing to left yet.
Just a game heaven. See because see because when you when,
when you realize what the table means, the game can wait.

(35:16):
That you can devote, t vote that you can devote that.
But thirty gave thirty minutes ago, thirty minutes ago, the
game began. But watch this before the game. There's a
pregame meal see before before.

Speaker 2 (35:32):
The game is a war. The game is a battle.
The game is a conflict.

Speaker 1 (35:36):
The game is a competition, but before the game, there's
a pregame meal. The pregame meal is to give you
the nutrition that you need before you go into the battle.
You getting ready to face. God's got a pregame meal.
I'm gonna meet Hell at work tomorrow. I'm gonna meet
Hell with my family. I'm gonna meet Hell with my circumstances. God,

(35:59):
I need a pregame meal. I need you to give
me nurturing so that I have the energy necesside to
tell those devils where to go, and I know where
to tell him to go. I'm just gonna tell him
to go home. You can go to Hell because Jesus
has already visited me from heaven because I am sharing
in his life. Don't be ashamed of what the power

(36:21):
of source is in the church. It's not the pulpit,
it's not the choir stand. They have their place. It's
in the table, because it's there where you share his life.
And when you share his life, guess what, you share
his victory because his death was victory.

Speaker 2 (36:38):
You share his victory.

Speaker 1 (36:41):
Just like a hungry car has got to pull up
to a filling station, a starving Christian better come to
the communion station, because that's where the filling comes for
the battles that you face ahead. A little girl was
ashamed of a mother, her mother. She was so ashamed
of a mother because the mother had a scar onless
side of her face. Mother, mother, I don't introduce you

(37:02):
to my friends, I don't take you to the PTA
meeting because I'm sure ashamed of your scar. Mother said,
let me explain how I got this scar. You were
a baby in the house. The house caught on fire.
I was outside at the well. I saw the house
was on fire. My baby was in trouble. I ran
into the house. I picked up my baby. On my
way out the house, one of the beams on fire
broke slapped me up side of the face as I

(37:23):
threw you the safety. So the only reason I'm looking
like this is because I was delivering you. The only
reason I'm looking like this is I was setting you free.
The only reason I looked like this is I was
I was giving you the victory. Why I went down
in defeat. When you get to heaven, there's gonna only
be one scard person.

Speaker 2 (37:43):
Up in heaven.

Speaker 1 (37:44):
You're gonna have a brand new face, brand new hair,
brand new body, brand new Latin. Everything about you is
brand new. But there's gonna be one Pasent up there
with a scar. He gonna have nail prints in his hand,
a scar and his son and now prints.

Speaker 2 (37:59):
In his feet. So forever you can remember. The only
reason I get to.

Speaker 1 (38:03):
Be up here forever is because he got slammed on
my behalf. He was wounded for my transgression. He was
bruised of my iniquity. The taptizement of my peers was
upon him.

Speaker 2 (38:16):
But guess what by his strife, I am here.

Speaker 1 (38:20):
He is the lay at the table.

Speaker 2 (38:27):
So I'm gonna ask.

Speaker 1 (38:30):
I'm gonna ask. I'm in to come, and right now
I want you to meet the Lord at the table.
And at the table you bring your sins, but you
also bring your circumstances, and then you, right now at
the table, have a conversation with Hell.

Speaker 2 (38:51):
Satan.

Speaker 1 (38:53):
You've been messing with me for years in my mind
and my body and my circumstances in my home, and
I can't go to church, but nothing has gotten better.
I hear the sermons, but nothing is changing. So right
now I'm sicking Jesus on you because I'm sharing his life.
You can go to Hell now because you've got to
deal with Jesus

Speaker 2 (39:12):
Now, not just me.