I would like to bring a few thoughts on communion from God's view point. 1 Corinthians 11:24-26. This message comes from the heart of God. I hope you will be able to see the importance of Jesus' sacrifice. This communion time is important because it's when we take out our contract that God made with us, and look at it. We recognize something very special that took place.
What was referred here by the words the Lord's death? Was it merely the snuffing out of His life, the putting to death His human mortality? Thousands of people have suffered physical death, and thousands of people have suffered physical torment like Jesus. His death that He refers to here was not just the stopping of his heart, or the stopping of His breath, we know that death hurts because of separation from family. But His was not only a separation from things held dear. Even the ungodly people are cared for by God. His arms are stretched out to people when they're still in their sins. The Word tells us, "If when we were His enemies we were reconciled we were brought to Him." He loved us enough to send Christ to die for us before we knew Him.
God's eye is upon everyone here, whether you know God or not. The way of the ungodly is a rough way. There are those hurts within. There is still a ray of hope within. Gabriel brought this truth to me so forcibly. Jesus' death in which He took our place was not just a physical death. There is another kind of a death that faces mankind. That brings fear, dread and torment to him all of his life. And that's that fear of facing God and hearing those words depart from Me into eternal damnation. This is the second death, that day of doom and damnation that faces mankind.
When Jesus came the hurts and the pains that caused the anguish was not the fear of an earthly human death because all mankind faces that kind of a death and Jesus did not spare us from physical death. But when Jesus came to die those words were given in the garden, "the soul in the day you eat of this fruit will die." The Word tells us that the soul that sins it shall die. When Jesus hung there on the cross it wasn't the anguish of the physical torment, though He suffered and felt everything we can possibly feel and it wasn't the separation from people He held dear although He felt it as keenly just as anyone.
But Jesus suffered pains that the ungodly, totally separated from God on this earth have never felt, for the ungodly have never felt the pains that comes when the last little flicker of hope is extinguished and they hear the words, "depart from Me into eternal damnation." They never felt the hopelessness, the horror of the cold side of God as He turns His back on them. Jesus suffered the torment of a damned soul. He cried out, "Oh God, why have You forsaken Me?" And the cold pains of eternal damnation, those icy fingers gripped His life. Jesus suffered the judgment of God for everybody.
God let us see your love for us through this truth that you sent your only Beloved Son to become the substitute for us! Jesus literally became our substitute; it was us that were to feel the sting of separation from God. Jesus came so that He can taste death for every man. Not physical death. He came so that He could taste that total separation from God, that eternal sinking of the sun into an eternal darkness. Jesus felt the eternal damnation in His body, but because of the power of that blood, and the power of a sinless life. In Acts, Peter said Jesus partook of this death, but it was not possible that He could be held in the band of this death.
I saw Jesus coming before the throne of God, laden, full of all the sins of the world. God told Gabriel to remove those dirty garments where they would never be found. Isaiah 53:4-6. He was brought as an offering for sin. Jesus' soul travailed for you. From the agonies of a damned soul many people are coming in a right standing relationship with God. You can now be a member of a heavenly race, looking holy and without blame before God because of the blood of Jesus covering you. God has made available to you a great covering for everyone who wants to know and follow God.
There is a day coming when many people who refuse to identify with Jesus, not realizing that He already tasted death for them, and He has already become their substitute in judgment, there is a day coming when men and women will hear those same words, and on that day they will feel the agonies that Jesus already experienced, but they don't have too!! God is working; He has the hosts of heaven working overtime to spare people the awfulness of that day.
If you're not sure your sins are all covered and you want to receive eternal life by faith through God's grace, just say audibly or from your heart right now, "Dear God, thank you for tasting death for me. Thank you for destroying the root of sin that has been held against me, for removing the records of sin!" You don't have to pay the penalty of your sin; you don't have to face the second death.
See Jesus smitten of God; now look at Him complete in power. Rev. 5:6. I believe that because of what Jesus has done, the bands of sin, disease, depression, habit, any other type of a band is going to be broken as you look unto Him. Look to Jesus; believe Him to set you free. As you remember Jesus' death, as you put your faith in what He has done, you identify yourself with what He has done and become a partaker of His life, and then the life of Jesus is seen in our mortal bodies. God hurt when Jesus was hurting because it was His own Son.
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