Good morning. We’re going to continue our series on the grace of God today, which will, one of these days turn into a book, so this is sort of preparatory for that. And today we’re going to talk about grace and vision. God has a great vision for our lives and we need to talk to God and pray and develop a vision for our lives going forward as well. And you will find as we look into these visions, the records we’re going to use may not use the word grace very often, but it is very clear that God helps people with a good vision for their lives and helps them accomplish great things and receive great deliverance — not dependent on them following a bunch of rules. That may happen in a business deal, I may sign a contract that if I fulfill these 12 things, and pay these fees, and hit this deadline then somebody is either going to some work for me or pay me for something. It is always a bunch of requirements, a bunch of contingencies, a bunch of goals to be met.
But, you don’t see that when you look at these records.. The reason I say it is by grace is that God just says He is going to do these things for His people without anything else; it is just He loves His people and He is going to take care of them. He is going to encourage them to have a bigger vision for their lives, and He is going to help show them that He can do more for them then they ever imagined. So, I think we’ll have a great time looking at these records, many of them are very familiar, but we’re looking at them again from the point of view of it is simply by God’s love and grace that He does these things. Let’s start in II Kings chapter six…
As taught by Bruce Mahone 20211205. All rights reserved.
Verse Listing and Notes
II Kings 6:8-23 Chariots of fire – Raise your vision for your life
Psalms 60:11-12 Through God we shall do valiantly: for he shall tread down our enemies
Psalms 71:1-15 Thou art my hope (vs. 5), I will hope continually (vs. 14)
Psalms . 91 1000, 10,000 shall fall, but it shall not come nigh thee (vs. 7)
Psalms 146:5 Happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the LORD his God
Psalms 147:11 The LORD taketh pleasure in them that fear him, in those that hope in his mercy
Proverbs 16:2 Commit(roll) your works unto the Lord, and your thoughts shall be established
Proverbs 28:1 The wicked flee when no man pursueth, but the righteous are bold as a lion
Proverbs 29:18 Where there is no vision (divine communication), the people perish (wander): but he that keepeth the law, happy is he
Ecclesiastes 9:4 For to him that is joined to all the living there is hope
Jeremiah 17:7 Blessed is the man that trusteth in the LORD, and whose hope the LORD is
Jeremiah 29:11-13 An expected end [NRS – a future with hope – tiqvah – hope, expectation, grounds for hope] (vs. 11)
Danielle 11:32 The people that do know their God shall be strong (stand firm) and do exploits (take action)
Romans 8:31-39 Nothing shall separate us from the love of God!
II Corinthians 4:(1-)18 Look not at those things which are seen
Philippians 3:3 Worship God in the spirit, rejoice in CJ, have no confidence in the flesh
Colossians 3:1-3 Seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth (vs. 1)
Good morning. Today, we’re going to continue our series on the grace of God and get into a subject, that is frankly rather involved, consider this kind of an introduction today then a final word on the topic, because we’re going to talk about grace and judgement. Judgement is a tough thing. People, I think, perhaps by nature, probably the nature of the old man, like to judge everything and everybody around them. They like to compare people to the way they are, and people that don’t measure up to the way they are, or the way they claim to be, they want to judge and think of them as somehow inferior, or sinful. And it is a very slippery slope. Because, as we’ll see as we go into this, first-of-all, the human condition is such that it’s impossible for any of us to ever be perfect. Sometimes we do better than others, sometimes we do better than ourselves, sometimes we do well for a while, then we don’t do so well for a while, and it is just a tough thing. And, when it comes right down to it, God is the only one that can judge accurately where people are at.
And, because we are in the age of grace, He doesn’t seem to spend a lot of His energy judging people, He seems to spend His energy loving people and answering their prayers and trying to help them, which as we are to imitators of God, that is what we ought to be doing instead of judging people and deciding who is more righteous then somebody else, we ought to realize as we try to do that righteousness come through Jesus Christ, and we just shouldn’t be worried about what everybody else does. Other than to love them and pray for them and help them. But it is a very challenging topic, we’re going to read some very challenging sections of scripture.
Again, I don’t pretend to have the final word on the sections of scripture, even on the topic. I’m reminded of things like where it says the weakness of God is strong than man, and the something of God is wiser than man. In other words, God is so far above where we are, that the idea that we should judge between ourselves is amazing. It would be like somebody is driving down the road in a Ferrari and you and I are taking a walk, and you’re all excited because you can walk a little faster than I can; well, so what, there is a guy in a Ferrari. He can go much faster then either of us can walk, run, or sprint. Well that is sort of the way God is. He is so far above where we are, that the idea that I should compare myself to you and say I’m better, or smarter, or anything, is just silly. Just silly. But people do it. So, we’re not going to stop people from dong it, but what we can do is learn from God’s word the folly of judging others.
And I know there are verses in the Bible that talk about, that if your brethren have a fight with each other, rather than going to the law or unbeliever, we should be wise enough as Christian brothers and sisters to judge the truth of the matter and work through it, but that is a different thing. That is working through a disagreement, I’m talking about just judging people about the way they live or the way they talk, or the way they dress, or one of the many, many other things that people judge each other on, it is just silly to do that, because it is really God’s job.
What we’ll see is as we get into this, is that is very challenging being a human being. It is just as challenging being a human being who is Christian trying to live God’s word. It is very difficult to really understand where people are really at, completely, you may see a little bit. What does it say somewhere? No one knows the heart of a man, except the man himself and God. It’s just not possible, so when it comes down to it: we love one another, we help one another, and ultimately, we look to God. Because God is the one who really understands us completely and can show us what to do. And, if we are off the ball, he can show us. And there are plenty of other verses about that. Like I say, we might have to have a part two on this one, I’m already thinking of half-a-dozen of things I should have put in the notes, so maybe we’ll do part two next time. At any rate, let’s start in II Kings chapter five…
As taught by Bruce Mahone 20211121. All rights reserved.
Verse Listing and Notes
II Kings 5:18-19 Go in peace
John 8:10-11 Neither do I condemn thee
Matthew 12:1-8 David and the shewbread (sacred loaves)
Romans 7 I delight in the law of God after the inward man (vs. 22)
II Corinthians 3 Where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty (vs. 17)
Matthew 7:1-5 Judge not, that ye be not judged (vs. 1)
Romans 2:1 Thou that judgest doeth the same things
II Corinthians10:1-12 They measuring themselves by themselves are not wise (vs. 12)
Romans 5:1ff We HAVE peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ
Good morning. We’re going to continue our series on the grace of God today, talking about grace and loving God. Last time we talked about grace and God loving us, no matter what we do or where we are. And, we may have covered what I’m gong to cover today to some degree in previous episodes, but we’ll look at it again from the point of view of the grace of God, and I’ve added a few scriptures that I don’t cover very often to just give another perspective on it. So let’s start in Deuternomy chapter six…
As taught by Bruce Mahone, 20211107. All rights reserved.
Verse Listing and Notes
Deuteronomy 6:4-5 Love the Lord thy God
Deuteronomy 7:7-9 Them that love him
Deuteronomy . 10:12-16 Love him and serve
Deuteronomy 11:1-25 Love the Lord
Deuteronomy 30:15-20 Life and good
Joshua 22:1-5 Be diligent to love the Lord your God
I Chronicles 10:1-14 How did Saul die?
Isaiah 1:11-19 To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices
Matthew 22:34-40 First and great commandment: love God
Matthew 23 These ought ye to have done, and not left the other undone (vs. 23)
Good morning. We’re going to continue our series on God’s Grace, looking specifically at God’s love, which is a topic we’ve looked at before, but today we’ll be looking at it from the point of view that we don’t earn His love, we probably don’t deserve His love, but God loves us anyway. So even though the word grace doesn’t show up very much in these verses we’re looking at, the fact that God loves us regardless of what we do is very clear. And, that is amazing. We often talk about unconditional love that God shows towards us, and that is very unique because we know with people, that you occasionally meet a rare individual that will love you unconditionally. And that is wonderful when that happens and I thank God for that. I know we all endeavor to do it, but is hard as people, because we don’t like slights, we don’t like attacks, we don’t like insults, we don’t like it when people let us down. So, even as much as we might try to love people unconditionally, it is difficult. Of course, a lot of people don’t’ even try to love unconditionally.
There are people that we try very hard to love and take care of and they don’t care about us at all. We’ve all dealt with that. But, all that aside, God’s love is unconditional. It’s purely by His grace, it’s purely because He chooses to love us, and no matter what we do He still loves us. So, I wanted to point that out because I’m sure there are places you could go where if you didn’t follow a group’s rules and recommendations, they may not come out and say God doesn’t love you, but they would sure as heck imply it. But, that is their problem, we’re not here to pick on other groups, we may look at them just for comparison, but we’re here to focus on God’s incredible grace and today, the great love we have because of that. So let’s start with some very familiar verses, we’ll go back to Deuteronomy chapter seven….
As taught by Bruce Mahone, 20211024. All rights reserved.
Verse Listing and Notes
Deuteronomy 7:8 God’s motives
Deuteronomy 23:5 God turned the curse (of Balaam) into a blessing, because He loved
Psalms 13:5-6 I have trusted in thy steadfast love
Psalms 34:8-10 O taste and see that the Lord is good; they that seek the Lord shall not lack any good thing —
Psalms 36:7-9 How excellent (precious) is thy lovingkindness
Psalms 92:1-2 To shew forth (declare) thy lovingkindness in the morning
Psalms 119:165 Great peace have they which love thy law, and nothing shall offend
Jeremiah 9:23, 24 He knoweth the Lord which exercises lovingkindness (vs 24)
Jeremiah 31:3 With lovingkindness He drew us.
Romans 8:28 All things work together for good
Romans 8:38, 39 Nothing can separate us
Ephesians 1:4-6 Holy and without blame, lovely and acceptable
I Thessalonians 4:9-12 You are taught of God to love one another (vs. 11 – aspire to lead a quiet life, aspire to live quietly, let it be a point of honor with you to keep calm)
Let Grace Abound, A Biblical Studies Class, Part 2
Good morning! Welcome back to Part 2 of Let Grace Abound. This is a topic we’ve been covering in some detail for about a year in our Fellowship now. We had a review of several month’s worth of weekly teaching in June, and this is a largely a review of what we’ve covered in our weekly teachings between June and October.
And as I’ve mentioned to some of you, I have many wonderful Christian friends as you all do, some of them hear I’m studying the grace of God, and they’re delighted, some of them get very nervous that I’m going to tell people to go out and do all sorts of nasty things because we’re under the grace of God. So, I’m going to try to stay away from both extremes and just read what the word says. And by the way, when people tell me that, I take that under serious consideration, but I don’t change what I’m teaching because of what somebody says; I change it if I can see it the word. So I listen to people, I look at the word; and that is part of the reason I didn’t want to rush into this class and go right a book right-away. I wanted to teach it, I wanted to reteach it, I wanted to get your input, I wanted to think about it, and I still think that we’ve gone beyond scratching the surface, but I think there is more to learn. I think we’ve got a good thing.
So, what is probably going to happen is there will be a volume one of the book come out, and then some people are going to say it is the greatest thing in the world, and some people are going to say, you’re a terrible sinner for even had said that. And that’s OK, they can say what they want. I’ll listen, I’ll look at the word, and if I see it in the word, I’ll adapt. If I don’t see it in the word, I’ll say, I’m sorry, I understand your concern, and I love you as a brother or sister in Christ, but I’m going to say with what I think the world says. So, at any rate, that is just a brief introduction. I’m delighted to be working it all with you and we’ll have plenty of time to chat between sessions. So let’s start in the Notes with Grace and Circumcision…
As taught by Bruce Mahone, 20211008 to 20211010. All rights reserved.
Good morning, we’re going to continue our study of the grace of God today. And, this is the last Sunday before we have our second weekend get-together, where we’ll have part two of what I call in those weekends, Let Grace Abound. And, that should give enough preparatory material that I might even start writing that book, which I’ve been talking about. That’s the plan.
But today we’re going to study about how joy and peace relates to grace. So much of the purpose and focus of this series that we’ve been on for many months, has been: that with the grace of God we don’t have to earn our salvation, we don’t have to worry about losing our salvation, we don’t have to worry about being thrown in the lake of fire or going though all the wrath and tribulation of the book of Revelation. And, some of the other things we have in life, are simply provided by the grace of God. Now, two topics I enjoy teaching on frequently, are joy and peace and we’ll go back and look at some of those verses we’ve looked at other times, but today we’ll look at it from the point of view of are these things that are available from God simply by His grace or are they things we have to earn, and they’re not available to people that don’t behave in certain ways that certain groups would like them to behave in.
In other words, is joy and peace by works or by grace? Is it taken away if some preacher somewhere says you are a sinner? Do you all of sudden have no joy or peace? Or is it simply available by God’s goodness and grace? That’s what we’ll look at, and the word grace doesn’t always appear in these verses that we’ll look at, but we’ll see lots of places that joy and peace come from and we’ll see a general pattern that they come from God’s love, and God’s goodness, and God’s grace. Not by the works of man. So, I think it will be very enlightening to wrap up this series of teachings we’ve had on the grace of God by looking at joy and peace. So, let’s go to second Chronicles chapter twenty…
As taught by Bruce Mahone, 20210926. All right reserved.
Verse Listing and Notes
II Chronicles 20:27 They returned with joy, for the Lord had made them to rejoice
Nehemiah 8:1-12 The Joy of the Lord is your strength
Psalms 5:11-12 Let those that trust thee rejoice, let them ever shout for joy
Psalms 16:11 In thy presence is fulness of joy
Psalms 21:1 The king shall joy in thy strength, O Lord, he shall greatly rejoice
Psalms 43:4 God my exceeding joy (NLT: the source of all my joy; NIV: my joy and my delight; lit: gladness of my joy)
Ecclesiastes 9:4-10 Eat thy bread with joy, and drink thy wine with a merry heart
Isaiah 26:3-4 Perfect peace whose mind is stayed
Jeremiah 15:16 Thy word was the joy and rejoicing of mine heart
Luke 1:43-44 Babe leaped in womb for joy
Luke 2:8-14 Good tidings of great joy (vs. 10)
John 15:10-14 That my joy might remain in you, and that your joy may be full
Luke 24:49-53 Returned to Jerusalem with great joy
Acts 8:1-8 There was great joy in that city
Acts 13:42-52 The disciples were filled with joy and with the Holy Ghost
Romans 5:6-11 We also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ
Romans 15:13 Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing
Colossians 1:9-11 All patience and longsuffering with joyfulness
I Thessalonians 5:16-18 Rejoice evermore
I Tim 6:17 Trust in the Living God, who giveth us all things richly to enjoy
Phil 4:6-7 The peace of God shall guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus
Good morning, wonderful to have you all here for another session on the grace of God. Today we’re going to talk about grace and hellfire. We’ve already covered grace and eternal life and salvation, but I’m going to dig a little deeper into the concept of hellfire because as you know the common perceptions throughout the world about Christianity, are that when you die, if you are a really good person, you’ll go to heaven, and you float around with angels with harps and life will be beautiful. And, if you’re a bad person, you’re going to go to hell, and it’s going to be fiery and there will be pitchforks and torment forever. And, neither of those concepts are actually in the Bible.
The heaven one is closer, because it says we will meet the Lord in the air and we will be with the Lord, and our bodies will be changed, so they are immortal and incorruptible. So, the idea of going up into the skies and living very well and happily for eternity, that’s much closer to reality. Although it is not exact, because we do come back with the Lord for the battle of Armageddon, and we do end up in the new Jerusalem, where there is a new heaven and a new Earth. So, it’s not quite the same of floating around in the sky forever. But that’s much closer. But the idea that you’re going to go somewhere, that anybody is going to go somewhere and be tormented in fire forever, that just can’t be supported from the scriptures. As you’ll see, the beast and the anti-Christ, it does talk about them being tormented for a long time, perhaps forever, but it doesn’t talk about anybody else. For everybody else, all it really says is they’ll be burned up, so that is what the word “perish” is used for. The word “die” just means you take your last breath and you body is dead. But the word “perish” means you are totally obliterated and wiped-out. It is the Greek word “apollyon,” which just means “completely wipe-out.”
But that won’t happen to us. It will happen to those whose names are not written in the Book of Life, at the final judgement. And, it doesn’t say anything about going down to hell and burning forever, it just says you’re basically disposed of. You’re thrown in the lake of fire, you burn up, and that’s it. But the idea of a place where torments occur, that is only mentioned once in the Bible and its in a parable written to the Pharisees, because that is what the Pharisee’s believed, so Jesus Christ was simply talking to the Pharisees in terms they would understand. But it’s not mentioned anywhere else in the Bible. So, we’re going to get into that a little bit today, and we’ll start in John 3:16…
As taught be Bruce Mahone, 20210912. All rights reserved.
Verse Listing and Notes
John 3:16 Should not perish (be totally obliterated)
Ephesians 2 By grace are ye saved – the gift of God (vs. 8)
I Thessalonians 4:13-18 We will meet the Lord in the air – so shall we ever be
Matthew 5:22 In danger of hell fire (Gehenna – originally the valley of Hinnom, south of Jerusalem, where the filth and dead animals of the city were cast out and burned)
Matthew 5:29-30 Cast into hell (Gehenna)
Matthew 10:28 Destroy both soul and body in hell (Gehenna)
Luke 16:19-31 Lazarus in Abraham’s Bosom [cf. Judges 9:7-16; Mat. 5:13-16. Some early Greek and Aramaic sources add, “And he said also another parable” to the beginning of Luke 16:19. Pharisees:“They also believe that souls have an immortal vigour in them, and that under the earth there will be rewards or punishments , according as they have lived virtuously or viciously in this life, and the latter are to be detained in an everlasting prison, but that the former shall have power to revive and live again” – Josephus, Antiquitiesof the Jews XVIII, i, 3. See also Luke 16:14-15; Acts 23:6-11.]
Good morning!. We’re going to continue our series on the Grace of God today, on the topic of Grace and Inheritance. There are a number of places in the Epistles where it says something along the lines that if you do on of these things that is a bad, you won’t have any inheritance and a lot of Christian groups will use that to scare people into behaving well. And, it is true we should behave well, but scaring somebody about losing their inheritance, going through hellfire or something, is not anything that fits at all with the grace of God. And, what we’ll find in these topics, in these sections of scripture, is that it is not talking about born again Christians that will have no inheritance, if they do anything on this list of bad behavior, it is those that are so into the bad behavior that they never get around to getting born again. Those are the ones that get no inheritance, because our inheritance is absolutely guaranteed as part of our new-birth rewards. Dr Wierwille used to talk about so many things come along with the new birth, and one of them is our inheritance. So, let’s get right into the scriptures and see for ourselves. In I Corinthians six…
As taught by Bruce Mahone, 20210829. All rights reserved.
Verse Listing and Notes
I Corinthians 6:9-11 The unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God – such were some of you
Galations 5:16-25 They that do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God (vs. 21)
Ephesians 1:9-23 We have obtained an inheritance (vs. 11)
The earnest [pledge, guarantee, deposit] (vs. 14)
The riches of the glory of his inheritance (vs. 18)
Ephesians 5:1-5 No one who is an idolater hath any inheritance in the kingdom of God (vs. 5)
Colossians 1:12 The father hath made us meet [qualified us] to be partakers of the inheritance
Colossians 3:23-24 Of the Lord ye shall receive the reward of the inheritance
I Pet 1:3-4 An inheritance that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you
Revelation 21:7-8 He that overcometh shall inherit all things – we already are God’s sons! (vs. 7)
Good morning. We’re going to continue our series on the grace of God today. And we’re going to cover a topic that I never covered, at least not this way. I’ve alluded to it and made comments. And I’ve never heard anyone else teach it in quite the arrangement we’re doing. And that is we are going to look at James the brother of the Lord and how grace did or did not show up in his ministry. Remember James grew up in the Roman province of Judea, what we now call Israel. And you you’ll see this in organizations and companies and politics, where it is very common for you to develop sort of a dynasty where one person in the family does well and people follow on. We know that Jesus Christ chose Paul to be the apostle to the Gentiles and Peter to be the apostle to the Circumcism, or the Israelites. Yet James, being the blood brother, at least half-brother of Jesus Christ, because Mary was hist mother and Joseph was his father, he rose to prominence, to the point that he had more clout and notoriety as the head of the Church in Jerusalem then even Peter. Which again, is not what was the will of the Lord according to what we see in other parts of the scripture, but it just worked out, it is hard to beat that situation.
I even had a high school friend, the guy that was the head of our student counsel, very good fellow, he got into politics in Massachusetts, and was a Senator, in the state senate in Massachusetts and decided to the run for US Congressman. There was an open seat and he ran for it and he was a considered a shoe-in, there was just almost no competition until one of the Kennedy sons decided he wanted to run. And that was it, because this guy who had very little experience from the Kennedy clan, the Kennedy’s were so recognized in Massachusetts, that the minute he ran, my old friend from High School has no chance. And that Kennedy, I think it is Joe Kennedy, I think is still a member of Congress from Massachusetts to this day, as he has been for about 20 years.
So, that name recognition we’ve seen it like I say in business, in politics, in sports, in just about anything you can imagine. And in religious groups you see this. You see it all over the place. And I know that happened with me and my brothers, we sort of ran the Boy Scout troupe in town. My oldest brother started out running it, then my middle brother, than I took it over. Church youth group, it was just assumed that if there was another Mahone to come along and run it, they would just let us do it. It wasn’t like we had to campaign and fight for it, people were just glad to have somebody do it, do they didn’t have to. And that is the way it worked out. At any rate, I digress a little bit, but the point is, James ended up being the head of the Church in Jerusalem.
And the other thing is since those in Jerusalem were so into the Law, having grown up in it, they tended to go back to it. So that is another thing we see through Christianity, when the pagans, those from a pagan background, if you were studying the Roman religion, or Greek religion, the Persian religions, when they became Christians, they tended to bring a lot of the ceremony and rituals and holidays and worship habits into Christianity. And there are whole books about this, some of which go a little overboard, but there are books like “Babylon Mystery Religion” and other things like that where you can trace the history of where they came from. Like the idea of worshiping the saints, you had a saint you worship when you lost your car keys, and another saint you pray to when somebody wants to get pregnant, and another saint you pray to when you want to have a good crop. This is nothing more than taking the pagan practice for having a god for everything under the heaven and praying to that god. They just wanted to keep that, instead of having one god to pray to they wanted to have a lot of them, but since you only had one, or maybe three gods in Christianity, they went to worshiping the saints.
So you see, so much of this. And the same thing happened in the churches in Jerusalem, these people had grown up there with the old testament Law. They liked it, they were used to it, they judged each other by it, it gave them sort of a measuring stick to measure how righteous they felt they were by how much of the law they did. And they were comfortable with it. I’ve know people today that grow up in Christian denominations that go to confession every week or every so often, and I have chatted with them and mentioned that there is nothing in the Bible about having to confess to a priest, and I’ve had be say yeah but I like it, I’m used to it. Because they grew up with it. And I’ve seem this happen so many times, and we all have. I’ve had people come to our Bible fellowship and get all excited about God’s Word and then all it does is excite them to go back to the church they grew up in. Because that is where they really feel comfortable. And I understand all of these things.
And James was not an evil guy, he didn’t do I don’t think really nasty things, or maybe one or two that we’ll read about. But, he did either bring the church back into the old testament Law or when people around him wanted to, he didn’t fight them. Sort of like, when Moses went up on the mount to get the ten commandments, Aaron allowed the people to make a golden calf, and it’s a little unclear, but it sounds like he even cooperated in it — he didn’t fight them off. Although it might not have been his idea, he saw which way the wind was blowing as far as popularity, and he just decided to go along with the golden calf. Of course Moses, the minute he saw it, he broke the calf up in pieces and got really mad. Because he didn’t care what the people thought. And we’ll see the same thing with Paul and James. James wants to put them back under the Law, Paul was resisting and trying to keep people in the grace of God. Of course, he gets sucked in too in Acts 21 and ends up in jail for several years as a result.
So, with that introduction, let’s go back to Ephesians two…
As taught by Bruce Mahone, 20210815. All rights reserved.
Verse Listing and Notes
Ephesians 2:4-10 Saved by grace – a gift from God
I John 3:22-23 This is the commandment: believe on JC and love one another
Acts 15:1-29 First Jerusalem Council
Acts 21:15-26 Second Jerusalem Council
James 1 Be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only (vs. 22)
James 2 A man is justified by works, and not by faith only (vs. 24)
James 3 The tongue is an unruly evil (vs. 8)
James 4 Humble yourselves in the sight of God (vs. 10)
So, we’re going to continue today our series on the Grace of God. Last time we started on the concept of sacraments, which have been a big deal throughout church history. And we talked about baptism. And today we’ll talk about the Lord’s Supper, often called holy communion, and some of the things connected to it.
Now before I start, don’t get me wrong, there is nothing at all wrong about celebrating and rejoicing and commemorating our Lord’s sacrifice. It is just some of the things throughout history that have been attached to it are rather odd. It is sort of like, there is nothing wrong with celebrating the resurrection of Jesus Christ by having an Easter celebration, we just need to realize that some of the things like eggs and rabbits came out of pagan fertility rights. There is nothing wrong with Easter eggs or little bunnies, just don’t confuse them with the truth of God’s word. And in similar ways, some of the things that have been connected with the concept of holy communion throughout the centuries have been nothing more than putting people under the law and trying to control people by restricting the holy communion.
So, we’ll get into the scriptures and then we’ll talk a little about the history, and then we’ll try to get a sense about how this can be important in our lives today. So, let’s start in Exodus chapter twelve…
As taught by Bruce Mahone, 20210801. All rights reserved.
Verse Listing and Notes
Exodus 12:1-11 The Lord’s Passover
Matthew 8:16-17 Himself took our infirmities and bare our sicknesses
Matthew 26:26-28 The cup and the bread
John 1:29 Behold the lamb of God, which taketh away the sins of the world
I Corinthians 5:7 Christ our passover is sacrificed for us
I Corinthians 10:16 The cup and the bread
I Corinthians 11:23-26 This do in remembrance of me
I Peter 2:24 By whose stripes ye were healed
What is NOT mentioned in the scriptures:
The term Holy Communion
Sacrament (Mystery)
If you are excommunicated, you cannot receive the sacrament
You need the sacrament for forgiveness of sins
Only those baptized and confirmed in my church can receive the sacrament