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00:00:00 I have been laboring in 1 Corinthians chapter 11 verse 23 through 30. My assignment today
00:00:18 is to talk about the power of the blood covenant. Before we partake of the Lord's supper, it's
00:00:25 important that we understand the power of the blood covenant. I'm going to take my time
00:00:30 with it, don't rush me. 1 Corinthians chapter 11 verse 23. Here the apostle Paul is writing
00:00:42 to the church at Corinth. He has gone to Corinth to introduce and establish them in the faith.
00:00:51 He is the apostle that is called on the road to Damascus. Having served diligently in Judeo
00:00:59 theology, he now converts to Christianity. Change is not easy. I said change is not easy.
00:01:09 And God has sent him to serve for the most part the Gentiles, many of which he would
00:01:16 not have eaten with before he was converted. Let's us know that bigotry and racism is destroyed
00:01:24 by salvation. Any salvation that doesn't leave you loving your brother is not legitimate.
00:01:36 No matter what language he speaks, the color of her skin or his skin, their age, their
00:01:43 intellect, their choices or their decisions, there ought to be something in you that does
00:01:49 not think more highly of yourself than you ought. And God has sent him to Corinth and
00:01:55 now he is laboring in Corinth and he says, "For I received from the Lord himself that
00:02:02 instruction which I passed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night in which he was
00:02:08 betrayed took bread." Whatever you did that was helpful. "And when he had given thanks,
00:02:17 he broke it and said, 'This is my body which is offered as a sacrifice for you. Do this
00:02:26 in affectionate remembrance of me.' In the same way, after supper he took the cup saying,
00:02:35 'This cup is the new covenant ratified and established in my blood.'" Wait, wait,
00:02:41 this cup is the new covenant. While he's writing the New Testament, he is saying this cup
00:02:52 is the new covenant. So the covenant is not a document, it's in the cup. Look at somebody
00:03:05 say it's in the cup. "Do this as often as you drink it in affectionate remembrance of
00:03:16 me." Now this is Amplified Bible. It adds the word affectionate but it defines clearly
00:03:23 the way God wants to be remembered. Not like you remembered where you put your watch, but
00:03:30 with a sense of affectionate meaning that God is monitoring your attitude and not just
00:03:37 your service. For every time you eat this bread and drink this cup, you are symbolically
00:03:44 proclaiming the fact of the Lord's death until he comes. Hold it, wait, wait. So every time
00:03:52 I drink this cup, I am proclaiming the Lord's death that's behind him until he comes that's
00:04:02 before him. My God. So then whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in a way
00:04:11 that is unworthy of him will be guilty of profaning and sinning against the body and
00:04:21 blood of the Lord. But a person must prayerfully examine himself and his relationship to Christ
00:04:35 and only when he has done so should he eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For anyone
00:04:44 who eats and drinks without solemn reverence and heartfelt gratitude for the sacrifice
00:04:50 of Christ eats and drinks, catch this, eats and drinks a judgment on himself if he does
00:04:57 not recognize the body of Christ. That careless and unworthy participation is the reason why
00:05:07 many among you are weak and sick. Oh my. It's the reason why many among you are weak and
00:05:21 sick and a number sleep in death. May the Lord add a blessing to the reading of his
00:05:29 word. Look at your neighbor and say neighbor. There is power in the blood covenant. Father
00:05:38 in the name of Jesus let the anointing saturate this place as we delve into the word of God
00:05:43 let it be made flesh in us and through us and with us and to us as we exemplify the
00:05:50 embodiment of the word wrapped up in flesh let the word penetrate let it be grafted in
00:05:58 let it become a part of us not a personality we assume for one day out of the week but
00:06:04 a lifestyle that is coherent with our belief system is what we ask you for. Now over the
00:06:11 next few minutes as we delve into the depths of your word let treasure come out of the
00:06:17 word and speak to us in a supernatural way. In Jesus name we pray. Let the church say
00:06:24 amen. You may be seated. Many, many churches celebrate communion on the first Sunday. Every
00:06:36 first Sunday. There's nothing wrong with that. Some denominations serve communion once a
00:06:42 year. There's nothing wrong with that. In this church we do it quarterly or so. There's
00:06:50 nothing wrong with that. He didn't say how often. He just said as often as you do this
00:06:55 do this in remembrance of me. I grew up in a church that served communion every first
00:07:00 Sunday and when I came in the church door I knew it was communion because there was
00:07:07 a big old, looked like a body in the front of the church. The communion cups were all
00:07:18 covered and the wine was all covered and as a little child when I walked in there I thought
00:07:25 it was kind of spooky because they would have it all covered over like a shroud symbolizing
00:07:33 that they had brought the body of Christ into the sanctuary. So when they unveiled it and
00:07:40 began to serve it I was made to understand that we were drinking the blood and eating
00:07:48 the body of Christ. I understood it a little bit. I was scared of it a little bit because
00:07:56 that last verse, "Whosoever drinketh unworthily, drinketh damnation to the soul." For this
00:08:04 cause many are weak and many are sick and many are gone to sleep. It gave me pause.
00:08:12 I had to think about that a little bit. I had to pray about that a little bit. I had
00:08:18 to get on my knees a little bit and make sure things was good because I didn't want to drink
00:08:23 something that made things worse because that word unworthily kind of got me a little bit
00:08:33 because who can say that they are worthy of the body of Christ? Save you understand justification
00:08:43 by faith you would be lost from the premise of understanding what it means to be a partaker
00:08:49 of the body of Christ. You have to begin with understanding and I'm going to take you backwards
00:08:54 and I'm going to take you forwards and then we're going to take communion. You have to
00:08:58 understand the history of blood covenants. Christ alludes to it in the very controversial
00:09:07 and ominous statement that he made that dissuaded many people from walking any longer with him
00:09:14 when he said unless you drink my blood and eat my flesh you will have no part with me.
00:09:20 And the Bible said that day many departed and walked no longer with him because it was
00:09:28 a hard saying. But it was not a new saying nor is it unique to Judeo-Christian theology
00:09:39 blood covenants go all the way back to human sacrifice amongst heathens. Native Americans
00:09:48 enter into blood covenant amongst brothers by piercing the skin of each other and allowing
00:09:56 the blood to connect is a type of blood covenant. African ritualism also supports a blood pact
00:10:04 is a traditional way of putting an agreement into effect in some African cultures. It is
00:10:11 generally used for serious agreements and considered a much stronger, a much stronger
00:10:21 binding than a signature or other binding method. You don't get any stronger than blood.
00:10:32 Blood is as high as you can get. Abrahamic covenant when God enters into covenant with
00:10:38 Abraham he enters into covenant with him and the Bible says that they had cut in two lambs
00:10:45 and goats and bullocks and turtle doves, five different animals and God himself walked through
00:10:52 the blood and promised Abraham while he was asleep that he would honor his covenant down
00:10:58 to his children. It was a blood covenant, a unilateral covenant, not a bilateral covenant.
00:11:09 A unilateral covenant is when somebody bequeaths something to you without your participation.
00:11:17 Abraham is asleep. So they didn't enter into a bilateral covenant, it is a unilateral covenant.
00:11:23 I'll give you a contemporary example. If I go to my lawyer and I will something to you,
00:11:30 you don't even have to be there to be the recipient of a covenant that does not require
00:11:35 your signature. It is bequeathed unto you, it is inherited by you, you become the recipient
00:11:43 of it without effort because the onus is upon the giver not the receiver. Oh, I'm preaching
00:11:52 already. You must understand this grace that we walk in, the onus is upon the giver and
00:12:00 not the receiver. The Bible said his right hand and his holy arm, we often misquote it,
00:12:07 have gotten him the victory. It also says salvation is of the Lord. It is by the Lord's
00:12:16 doings, it says, we are not consumed. His mercy is new every morning. If we took the
00:12:25 whole service and danced the whole service, if we took all our earthly goods and our possessions
00:12:31 like the apostles once did and committed it into the kingdom, we still could not get past
00:12:37 what God gave us when God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever
00:12:44 believeth on him should not perish but have everlasting life. And when I say I'm blessed,
00:12:50 I'm blessed because I am the recipient. I am the beneficiary. I have entered into a
00:13:00 place of receiving something that I'd had nothing to do with. God did it all by himself.
00:13:08 To God be the glory for the things he has done. My turmoil with the text though exists
00:13:17 on the premise that the apostle Paul has written this particular epistle and he has written
00:13:24 it to the church at Corinth and he says that the Lord, he gave them the teaching because
00:13:30 he had gotten it from the Lord himself. It was that phrase that had me stuck and studying
00:13:39 because how could Paul have gotten it from the Lord himself when Paul didn't, Paul was
00:13:46 a Christian killer. He was not at, in the upper room or at the Lord's supper and yet
00:13:55 he says I have gotten it from the Lord himself. He is the least of the apostles in terms of
00:14:04 experiencing Jesus. The others had walked with Jesus for three years. They had seen
00:14:12 Jesus turn water into wine. They had seen Jesus heal the woman with the issue of blood.
00:14:17 They have seen Jesus do exploits that raised Lazarus from the dead. They had seen Jesus
00:14:24 walk on the water. Paul was not there. Paul was not there when the woman with the issue
00:14:29 of blood touched the hem of his garment. Paul was not there when the woman who was bowed
00:14:33 over for 13 years and could in no ways lift up herself, straighten up herself. Paul was
00:14:37 not there when blind Bartimaeus came over to him and got healed from his blindness.
00:14:43 Paul was not there and yet Paul has this, this, this great expository of the mystery
00:14:53 of the Godhead. The mystery of the so-called rapture, I say so-called because rapture is
00:14:59 not a Bible word. It is inferred but it is not expressed. We shall not all sleep but
00:15:04 we shall all be chained in the moment and in the twinkling of an eye. The dead in Christ
00:15:10 shall rise first and we who are alive and remain shall be, here's where we get the word,
00:15:15 yeah, yeah sister, help me preach this morning. We shall be caught up together with Him in
00:15:22 the air. Paul introduces all of this. Paul introduces most of our Christian theology
00:15:28 without having been a direct disciple in the original choices of Christ. In fact, Paul
00:15:36 does not accept Christ until Christ has been crucified and Christ appears to him on the
00:15:45 road to Damascus and yet he has conveyed unto him the most powerful revelations that caused
00:15:55 us to have most of our New Testament theology and he gave some apostles, some prophets,
00:16:00 some pastors, some teachers, some evangelists for the perfecting of the saints, for the
00:16:04 work of the ministry till we all come into the unity of the faith, came from Paul. Shall
00:16:10 we continue in sin that God forbid? How can we that are dead to sin live any longer therein?
00:16:16 Came from Paul. For we know if this earthly house of tabernacles shall be dissolved we
00:16:21 have another building eternal in the heavens. It came from Paul. Why did most of the revelation
00:16:29 come from the person who had the least experience? Sometimes God will give you revelation into
00:16:41 things that does not come into alignment with your experience. You know it. You just know
00:16:49 it. You don't know how you know it. You just know it. You can do it. You don't know how
00:16:54 you can do it. You can just do it. You weren't trained to do it. You didn't go to school
00:16:59 to do it, but there are certain things that are wired into your DNA that God has gifted
00:17:05 you to be able to do that you know you can do it and it doesn't make any sense that you
00:17:11 can do it and a lot of people don't like that you can do it and they hate on you that you
00:17:16 can do it, but you can still do it because the Lord has revealed it unto you. The Lord
00:17:22 has shown it unto you. The Lord has expressed it unto you. The Lord has given it unto you.
00:17:28 You are gifted. How many people are honest enough to admit that some of the things that
00:17:39 you're able to do you can't explain it, you're just gifted? Touch your neighbor and say I've
00:17:46 been gifted. With that gift comes a responsibility. If God thought enough of you to give you a
00:17:53 gift there has to be a certain level of responsibility that comes with that gift that you be a good
00:17:59 steward of that gift. What the enemy tries to do to the gifted is distract them with
00:18:07 trials and temptations so that they don't walk into their legacy and understand who
00:18:13 they are because they're gifted. What the enemy tries to do with the gifted is raise
00:18:19 up and anoint people to hate you because they don't understand how they worked so hard and
00:18:29 got so much less and you did so little and God used you in such a mighty way. It's just
00:18:36 that God gave it to you. The gift is the grace of God. The gift is the grace of God. I'm
00:18:45 going to say it again for the people over here. The gift is, let me say it for the people
00:18:50 in the balcony. The gift is the grace of God. The gift is the grace of God. The enemy's
00:18:57 trying to tell you you don't have nothing to offer and the devil is a liar. Everything
00:19:02 you got is a gift from God. Somebody ought to shut me down. Shut me down. Here again
00:19:16 in our text Paul seems to have the greatest depth of insight and revelation about the
00:19:21 Lord's table and the Lord's supper and he didn't even have a seat at the table. Who
00:19:31 can do that stuff but God? Who can do that stuff but God? Who can get you up to speed?
00:19:39 You're three years behind. You're three years behind and God all by himself. Y'all didn't
00:19:50 get that. Let me try that again. You're three years behind and God just goes ... And knowledge
00:20:05 from God doesn't come through letters or words. It just ... You just know it. You don't know
00:20:13 how you know it. You can't prove that you know it. You can't explain it to people, but
00:20:18 you know that you know that you know that you know that you know. And if you're gifted
00:20:24 sometimes you don't even recognize that you're gifted because gifted feels normal to you.
00:20:34 It feels normal to you. That's why you have to have certain kinds of people around you
00:20:40 who are not intimidated so that they can reflect the glory of God because sometimes you don't
00:20:46 even know yourself how effective you are. So you can be gifted and be insecure especially
00:20:56 if you don't have people that are secure enough to reflect your glory. That's why God created
00:21:03 man in the first place to reflect his glory. God said, "I want to see what I look like."
00:21:13 And he made man out of the dust of the earth so he could see himself. And he could see
00:21:19 himself in Adam until he sinned. And when he couldn't see himself, he said, "Adam, where
00:21:29 art thou? I can't see myself." Something has darkened the glory. You should be illuminating
00:21:38 the Garden of Eden. If you got glory, you got light. When you walk into the room, you
00:21:47 bring light into the room. Glory to God. When you got glory on your life, you have enlightenment.
00:21:56 Enlightenment is separate from education. I'm a great proponent of education. That's
00:22:04 why we have Jake's Divinity School. But education will never replace enlightenment. Paul is
00:22:11 enlightened in a way that causes other disciples to be a little off-putting toward him. Because
00:22:27 when you really bless, when you really bless, people will cop a tune. They will get an attitude.
00:22:41 They will resist you just because you're blessed and leave you scratching your head. "What
00:22:47 did I do to her? Why does he not like me? Why is he talking about me?" You don't understand
00:22:55 that light is coming off of you in a way. And men love darkness rather than light because
00:23:03 their deeds are evil. And some folks are just evil. You're trying to psychoanalyze it? Stop
00:23:16 trying to psychoanalyze it. You're trying to counsel it. You can't counsel it. It's
00:23:20 just evil. Just evil. Judas was just evil. He was the son of perdition. He was just evil.
00:23:32 And evil people don't be shocked when they do what they are. Because evil people are
00:23:41 going to do evil. And once you teach me you are evil, I don't expect anything to come
00:23:49 out of you. For you should know the tree by the fruit it bears. So I can't expect you
00:23:58 to produce nice when your root is nasty. I just helped somebody right there. I just helped
00:24:11 somebody. Somebody's bird just rolled away. So I don't know why you're sitting up disappointed
00:24:16 because they act that way. How could they act any other way? They're acting that way
00:24:21 because they are. I got something. You got something. We got something. We didn't earn
00:24:48 it. We didn't work for it. We didn't labor for it. We stepped into it.
00:24:55 Let the neighbor say, "I just stepped into it." I didn't earn it. I just stepped into
00:25:14 it. I just stepped into it. I just stepped into it. I haven't been trained. Didn't go
00:25:25 to school for it. Anybody know what I'm talking about? I just stepped into it. Sometime I
00:25:36 was in it and I didn't even know I was in it. Until you told me the effect it had on
00:25:41 you, I didn't even know it was even valuable. I just stepped into it. I can just fix cars.
00:25:49 I can just build houses. I can just fix things. I can just do things. I can just make things.
00:25:55 I just ... Somebody's getting ready to ... In fact, let's decree a decree. Let's decree
00:26:11 and declare. Shake hands with somebody and say, "In 2024, I'm just going to step into
00:26:17 it."
00:26:18 Now, let me go further. Sit down. Let me go further. Now, communion did not become communion
00:26:44 until Christ changed the meaning of the elements. The disciples did not go up to have the last
00:26:54 supper in order to have communion. They were going up because it was the Passover. So,
00:27:02 the meal that they ate and the experience that they had was centered around the Passover.
00:27:08 We focus on the wine and the bread, but if you will remember, the Bible said, "And supper
00:27:16 being ended." So, supper is not just wine and bread, but the wine and the bread is a
00:27:28 part of the supper that represents the body and the blood of Christ. But before, it represented
00:27:38 the lambs that were slain in Egypt for the exodus of the Hebrews from the bondage of
00:27:46 Pharaoh. Okay? Are you following me? Because I'm going kind of heavy today. Are you with
00:27:53 me? Okay. The meal is called ... The Jews would call it the cedar meal. It is a meal
00:28:01 that is prepared on the Passover day. It is a particular meal to reflect the tradition
00:28:10 of their escape. Their escape from Pharaoh came through the lamb and the blood of the
00:28:18 lamb because, write this down, freedom is a bloody business. Anytime you see freedom,
00:28:29 somebody shed blood to make that freedom possible. Whether it is spiritual freedom, whether it
00:28:35 is the freedom to vote, whether it's the freedom of the rights of women, freedom is a bloody
00:28:41 business. Don't expect to wish yourself free. If there is no blood, there is no freedom.
00:28:56 Anytime you just got to fight. The kingdom suffered violence and ... The cedar meal.
00:29:13 This is a meal that the Jews did to commemorate to their children so that their children would
00:29:19 not forget their ancestral suffering and sacrifice to bring them to the place that they're in.
00:29:28 There are at least five foods that I jotted down that I wanted you to be aware of just
00:29:34 for your own head space. Five foods that go into the cedar meal. Okay? There's the shank
00:29:40 bone. There's the shank bone where Jacob was smoked. The shank bone. There is the egg,
00:29:51 the new beginnings. There is the bitter herbs, the price they paid. There is the vegetables,
00:29:58 the work they grew. There is the sweet paste called harriset, which made up the cedar meal.
00:30:06 Every time they ate this meal, they reached back and connected with their experience with
00:30:14 God that brought them out of Egypt. Everybody should have something that becomes your point
00:30:21 of reference. That when all hell breaks loose, you can look back and remember when I was
00:30:29 in the hospital and they said I was going to die, God healed me. Or I was in the car
00:30:36 wreck or I almost lost my mind or he brought me out of jail. There ought to be some point
00:30:42 of reference that guides the trajectory of your life because you're looking back at your
00:30:48 life and you know if it had not been for the Lord that was on my side, I would have been
00:30:54 swallowed up. But thanks be unto God who gives us the victory through Jesus Christ our Lord.
00:31:01 And you ought to have something to commemorate it, to celebrate it, to authenticate, thank
00:31:10 you. I couldn't say it for some reason, I don't know. My tongue just fell out of my
00:31:15 mouth. Authenticate the fact that you have been saved. It might not mean anything to
00:31:19 anybody but you. But every time you look at it, it causes you to want to stand up and
00:31:25 fight. It might be a picture, it might be a photograph, but everybody ought to have
00:31:32 a testimony. And the interesting thing about the cedar mill is that the cedar mill was
00:31:43 done so that the tradition was not lost with the transition of generations. The tradition
00:31:52 is not lost by the transition of generations. They kept it alive by sharing a cedar mill.
00:32:02 And Jesus is honoring the old covenant by going up there as he always did on the Passover
00:32:09 to enjoy the meal. We don't talk about the meal, we talk about the wine and the bread.
00:32:15 But the Bible says in supper being ended in the Gospel of Saint John, Jesus stood up,
00:32:22 laid aside his garments, girded himself with a towel and began to wash feet. Do you remember
00:32:28 that? That's right after they had eaten the cedar meal. Many cedar plates also have room
00:32:36 for a six hazard. The six hazard is also important because it is completely bitter. The cedar
00:32:48 mill is a central component of the Passover celebration. It lets us know, it let them
00:32:55 know that they were liberated by God from the slavery of Egypt. Sometimes you got to
00:33:05 remind yourself you free. Sometimes you got to remind yourself you free. Especially when
00:33:26 people try to dominate you and control you and tell you what to do and where to go. Sometimes
00:33:33 you got to remind yourself, I'm a grown woman. I'm a grown man. I don't want to go. Why are
00:33:40 you not? I don't want to go. That's my why. I'm free. Somebody shout, I'm free. Somebody
00:33:51 shout, I'm free. Somebody shout, I'm free. From the bondages that held me, from the past
00:33:59 that constrained me, from the fear that intimidated me, from the demons that attacked me, from
00:34:06 the witch that tries to hex me, from the generational curses that tried to bind me, from my habits
00:34:12 and my past, from my proclivities and my weakness, somebody shout, I'm free. Every time you say
00:34:20 it, hell gets nervous. Every time you say it, demons tremble. Every time you say it,
00:34:27 there's an earthquake in Hades because the devil does not want you to know that you are
00:34:33 free. When you know you're free, you don't need a Juneteenth. When you know ... See,
00:34:46 if you don't know you're free, you'll keep walking like a slave because you haven't got
00:34:52 the message yet that you are free. That's why preaching is so important because it announces
00:35:03 to the captive that the price has been paid on cavalry that purchased your freedom. If
00:35:10 you don't want to be a drug addict, and if you don't want to be a dope dealer, and if
00:35:20 you don't want to be a whore monger, and if you don't want to be a liar, and if you don't
00:35:25 want to be a hypocrite, I just came to tell you what has already been paid for by his
00:35:50 freedom. That's why they celebrated with unleavened bread. I'm going to the last sentence. That's
00:35:58 why they celebrated with the unleavened bread because when they were in Egypt, they had
00:36:04 to make bread with leaven. They didn't want themselves to think of themselves the way
00:36:11 they did when they were serving the Egyptians, so they celebrated with unleavened bread.
00:36:18 In the New Testament, it takes on a new meaning. Leaven represents sin, but in the Old Testament,
00:36:29 unleavened bread was rebellion against favor. There are some things that you do that's not
00:36:36 even for you. It's for the one who held you. I dressed up to let you know I can. I dressed
00:36:51 up to let you know I can make it without you. There's some things you do just because you
00:36:56 want them to know. I never will forget a young lady told me, "I'm your intercessor, and if
00:37:02 you don't let me intercede for you, you won't be able to preach." I said, "Let's try it.
00:37:10 Let's try it. I dare you, let's try it." I opened up the door and let her out the building
00:37:23 and said, "Watch me. See if I can have power without you. See, once you know, you're free."
00:37:35 Oh, y'all ain't going to talk to me this morning, but y'all, you know you got some people in
00:37:43 your life that didn't think you could make it without them. Don't you sit there and look
00:37:49 at me all cross-eyed and funny looking. You know some people that when they walked out
00:37:54 on you, they thought you was going to die, and you still standing where you standing.
00:38:00 Don't you sit there and act like I'm not coming right up your road preaching this gospel.
00:38:05 I'm preaching up in here, up in here. Liberation is to be celebrated. I said, "Liberation is
00:38:25 to be celebrated." You can't appreciate it until you've been bound, but if you ever been
00:38:32 bound and you mess around and get loose, you're praising God for stuff people don't even understand.
00:38:43 Your praise gets on other people's nerves because they never been tied like you've been
00:38:49 tied. They can't be grateful like you've been grateful, but if you ever been tied up, thought
00:38:56 your life was over, thought you would die and go to hell, and Jesus broke the chains
00:39:04 and set you free, it'll make you run all over this church. It'll make you leap out of your
00:39:11 shoes. It'll make you dance with no music. Somebody give him 30 seconds of praising,
00:39:33 praise him like you know you're free. Praise him like you know you're free. Praise him
00:39:40 like you know who you are. Praise him like you got a man of mine. Praise him like you're
00:39:46 a free woman. Praise him like you're a free man. Let everything that have breath ... One
00:40:06 more thing about the cedar mill. Cedar mill done correctly in the Old Testament was four
00:40:11 cups of wine, each representing a different stage of the Exodus story because real deliverance
00:40:21 comes in stages. It ain't no one cup experience. Real deliverance comes in stages. It's not
00:40:37 a one cup experience, but it is a cup kind of thing. That's why Jesus said, "Father,
00:40:43 if it be thy will, pass this bitter cup from me." Come on somebody. Freedom is a process.
00:40:55 You don't get it in the first cup. You don't get up off the altar and you got everything
00:40:59 you need to have. Some of you are trying to do four cup work with one cup experience.
00:41:13 Now somebody say, "Drink again." Drink again.
00:41:16 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The reason you don't drink again is that now you have one cup,
00:41:21 now you're going to judge everybody else going back to get more and more and more and more.
00:41:26 You need to stop judging and keep on drinking because God will fill you up. Woman, if you
00:41:31 drink of the water that I have, you will never thirst again. The scripture said, "Out of
00:41:37 your belly shall flow rivers of living water." You say, "Well, I thought you was talking
00:41:43 about wine. Why are you talking about ..." Jesus turned water. God is going to take the dismal
00:41:55 waters of your life and translate them into wine miraculously and it's a process. You
00:42:02 won't know when it happened, but somewhere in the process of being poured out, in the
00:42:10 process of giving, in the process of serving, in the process of carrying heavy loads, in
00:42:17 the process of helping other people, Jesus turns your water into wine. Go back and read
00:42:24 the story. You can't tell when he did it. You just know that he did it. Have you ever
00:42:30 got healed and you don't know when it happened? You just looked up and you just know the whole.
00:42:40 That used to hurt. That don't hurt no more. You used to say that and make me cry, but
00:42:47 I'm not crying anymore. I don't know when God ... So I don't have time to give all of
00:43:08 it. The first cup was the revival of the Messiah. The second was for the redemption of Israel.
00:43:12 The third was for the liberation from Egypt. The fourth, for the coming of the future Messiah.
00:43:17 It looked ... They were drinking forwards and backwards. Past, present, and future.
00:43:25 Like the text, the Bible says, "We do show forth his death, that's past, until he comes,
00:43:31 that's future." There is an eschatology involved in communion that says, "I'm just doing this
00:43:40 till you come back." Jesus says, "I will drink no longer wine till I drink it with you in
00:43:48 the kingdom of God. You keep on drinking, waiting on me to come. I'm going to abstain
00:43:55 until I come. The next time we drink together, it will be a toast at the marriage supper
00:44:02 of the Lamb, where the wicked shall cease from troubling and the weary shall be at rest.
00:44:09 All the saints of the ages ... Oh, hallelujah. Lift your glass up like you're toasting somebody.
00:44:15 Hallelujah. When you hear that clink come from heaven, when there's a sound from heaven,
00:44:21 when the clouds roll back, and when he who we have waited for suddenly appears, behold
00:44:28 the bridegroom cometh. The blood is my covenant. Say, "The blood is my covenant." The blood
00:44:39 is my covenant. It represents everything I needed before they picked up a pen to begin
00:44:45 to write the New Testament. The Bible is clear that the New Testament, or the New Covenant
00:44:50 rather, is in his blood. It's in his blood. It's in his blood. It's in his blood. It's
00:45:06 in his blood. It's in his blood. It's in his blood. It's in his blood. It's in his blood.
00:45:09 Everybody else that was crucified, they were dead when the Roman soldiers came to check
00:45:13 them. But Jesus, Jesus, when they came along, Jesus ... They were alive when they checked
00:45:20 them. When the Roman soldiers found them alive, they broke their bones so that they could
00:45:25 not resist the nails and become obedient unto death. But Christ was already so obedient
00:45:32 unto death that when they got to him, he was already dead. The reason he had to be already
00:45:38 dead is that he was the Lamb of God, and there was not to be a bone broken in his body. Hallelujah.
00:45:47 Because he can't be a broken savior and save a broken world. And they hung him high, and
00:45:55 they stretched him wide. He hung his head, and for me he died. So rather than to break
00:46:03 his bones, they pierced him in his side. And the Bible said out of his side came blood
00:46:11 and water. So when I talk about water, I'm talking about blood. When I talk about blood,
00:46:18 I'm talking about water. Out of his side came blood and water. The atonement for my sins,
00:46:32 the liberation from my past, so I don't have to sit up here and be at war in my head because
00:46:39 I'm free now. Let me announce to every battered wife, you're free now. Let me announce to
00:46:52 every convict, you're free now. Let me announce to every drug dealer, you're free now. Let
00:47:01 me announce to every pervert, you're free now. You might still be doing it, but you
00:47:07 don't have to. He whom the son have set free is free indeed. You need to have your Juneteenth.
00:47:22 Shake hands with seven people and tell them I'm free. I'm free. And then lay hands on
00:47:34 yourself and say I'm free. And watch the Holy Ghost touch your soul. Watch the Spirit of
00:47:41 God stir you up. Watch God break your shackles. Watch God heal you of your shame. Watch God
00:47:49 scrub out your guilt. He's going to scrub guilt out of your spirit because you're free.
00:47:56 Let the redeemed of the Lord. Let the redeemed of the Lord say.
00:48:20 I don't want you to go into a new year with old chains. Before we get to the new year,
00:48:46 we've got to have an emancipation service and liberate ourselves from all of this torment
00:48:52 and all of this pain and all of this hell. Counseling is good. Therapy is good. But there's
00:48:59 something that happens in the spirit when you know you are free by the power of the
00:49:05 blood of the Lamb that takes it to the next level. Anybody who's Holy Ghost free, show
00:49:12 them how Holy Ghost free people. Praise the Lord.
00:49:19 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
00:49:41 yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. This is what freedom looks like. This is what freedom
00:49:49 looks like. This is how you praise God when you know your soul is free. I am free. Praise
00:50:04 the Lord. No longer bound. No more chains holding me. My soul is resting. It's just
00:50:17 a blessing. Praise the Lord. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. I'm free. Tell cancer,
00:50:34 tell leukemia, tell heart trouble, I'm free.
00:50:53 I wondered in my mind when Jesus prayed about the cup and said, "Father, forbid I will pass
00:51:06 this bitter cup from me." The cup. It wasn't the death. It was the cup of sin. The cup
00:51:19 of iniquity. The cup of our shame. It was bitter like the cedar meal. If it be thy will,
00:51:30 pass this bitter cup from me. The Bible says that he sweated till blood came out. I just
00:51:43 wondered in my mind if the blood didn't get in her hair because he started talking about
00:51:50 the cup. Because the blood of Jesus was the only thing that could atone for the cup of
00:51:58 sin. For without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sin. And just for a minute,
00:52:08 the blood came out of his pores, said, "Let me at it. I'll tear that cup up when I think
00:52:16 of the goodness of Jesus and all that the Lord has done for me."
00:52:22 He told the boys, "Sleep on. The system is working. The system is working. When I said
00:52:44 cup, I got blood. You can rest." And we have entered into the rest of the Lord. And the
00:52:56 wicked have ceased from troubling and we have been at rest. And we're not justified by works.
00:53:02 We have entered into rest because the system works. The cup, here come the blood. No nails,
00:53:14 no piercing, just blood coming through the pores of his skin. Anxious blood, ready to
00:53:25 redeem. Three times we see the blood. When they circumcised him on the eighth day in
00:53:33 the temple, that was the first drop of the blood of Jesus to hit the ground. Again, in
00:53:40 the garden of Gethsemane, when the blood rushed through his pores, as he began to contemplate
00:53:48 the cup, the blood knew it's going to take me. And the third and final time was when
00:53:57 they hung him on the cross and they nailed him to the tree. Hallelujah. And he started
00:54:03 bleeding from the crown of thorns that was on his head and out of his right hand and
00:54:11 out of his left hand and out of his feet coming together, they were driven together with one
00:54:17 spike showing that the Jews and Gentiles would come together with one spike of the gospel
00:54:24 and forever be connected. Oh, y'all don't hear what I'm saying. But the problem with
00:54:31 the story is there are only four nails. There are only three nails, one in his hand, one
00:54:39 in this hand, one in two feet, and the only other piercing is the crown of thorns on his
00:54:45 head. And that's only four, but five is the number of grace. So the Roman soldier, when
00:54:53 he came up and pierced him in his side, y'all don't hear what I'm saying. I told you in
00:55:06 the Old Testament, they drank four cups. So we got four on the cross. But when they pierced
00:55:12 him in the side, we stepped from law over into grace. Tell your neighbor, I just stepped
00:55:18 into it. I just stepped into it. I just stepped into grace. This grace has sold my life. God
00:55:28 put it on me. This grace I got right now, God gave it to me. This grace I'm walking
00:55:34 in right now. This blessing I got right now. This touch I got from God right now, God gave
00:55:41 it to me. Hate on me if you want to. Somebody take a step. Just step into it. What you've
00:55:52 been praying about for 2024, God said you're just going to step into it. You're just going
00:56:03 to step into it. You're going to step into a grace that's going to forever settle them
00:56:10 down. A sanctified. When they pierced him in his side, not nailed him to the tree, when
00:56:18 they pierced him in his side, the new covenant, which brings us here, which brings us to the
00:56:33 transformative influence of the blood, and I'll close with this. When Jesus is at the
00:56:40 table, they go up the stairs to have the Passover, to commemorate the Paschal Lamb of Exodus.
00:56:52 For the first time in history, Jesus changes the trajectory of their lives by changing
00:57:01 the meaning of their elements. He says, "Take, eat." This is not about your ancestors anymore.
00:57:20 This is not about how they escaped the Pharaoh. For the Pharaoh they escaped is just a shadow
00:57:27 of the Pharaoh you're escaping. You're escaping from Satan's grip over your life. He says,
00:57:35 "Take, eat." The Lamb was just a shadow of who I am. The Pharaoh was just a shadow of
00:57:44 who Lucifer is. Now watch this. This is my body that was broken for you, but no bones
00:57:59 in his body were ever broken because he would not suffer the Romans to break him, but he
00:58:10 is broken in you from the physical body of Christ to the mystical body of Christ. He
00:58:20 now breaks himself. No man gets to do this. I'm going to do this myself. He now breaks
00:58:27 himself. I feel like preaching. I'm sorry, y'all. I'm going to quit. I'm going to stop.
00:58:35 He came out of no shot. No man takes my life. I lay it down. If I lay it down, I'll pick
00:58:43 it back up again. I'm not going to let them break me, but take, eat. This is ... So the
00:58:50 physical body of Christ serves the memorial body of Christ to the mystical body of Christ
00:58:59 until we wait on his return, which is the glorified body of Christ.
00:59:10 Today, this is not just a ceremony. This is not just a routine. This is our alma mater.
00:59:30 This is our declaration of independence. This is our cedar mill reminding the enemy of what
00:59:43 he paid for, for me to be free, reminding myself not to be foolish with grace, but to
00:59:59 take on the responsibility that he took on to redeem us from our sins.
01:00:11 Join hands with somebody. Everyone standing. No one untouched. There is not a person in
01:00:20 this room, on this stream, or who will watch this message in perpetuity who is not guilty.
01:00:34 The person you're touching was in the cup. You were in the cup.
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