It is the blessed habit of the saints to
especially remember our Lord at His own instituted remembrance feast. This
ought to be our hearty resolve each Lord’s Day. Nothing should be allowed to
disturb these moments of quiet and sacred remembrance. Then let us put aside
all worldly care, and all daily business, and all the griefs and sorrows of our
earthly pilgrimage, gathering to Him and with His saints in this feast of love.
({{1 Cor 10:17}})
The Celebrants of the Past
It is pleasing to remember how many of all
ages in the Christian Church have celebrated the remembrance feast and the
sufferings and death of the Saviour in this, His appointed way. It has never
been a crowded table; but it has never been a forsaken one. Many are now in
heaven who were constant at His supper on earth, but now feast with Him in the
banqueting halls of glory.
Many of these dear ones of ages past commemorated His sufferings and death at
the risk of their lives. The mountaintops were not too cold; the moors and
glens not too isolated; the caves of the wilderness not too damp and drear for
those noble souls who loved their Lord. They testified their devotion to Him at
all hazards and under every hardship. They sat where the Belshazzars and
Caesars of this world never sat, nor ever shall.
There was a good deal of zeal, warmth, and fervency in their devotion. Their
excellent example stirs and excites our own love as we remember them. We cannot
help but admire these saints of past days who cleaved to the Lord through
grace, and with great purpose of heart kept the feast. They recognized His
righteousness for their justification, His fullness for their every need, and
His blood for their pardon and cleansing. They would not forget and therefore
were resolved to keep the feast.
The Celebrants in Our Own Land
It is pleasing to remember, too, that
there are many believers in our own land who come to this appointed ordinance.
We who are of British stock have ancestors who once sat at “the
table of devils,” as in the case of the
Druids. We read our history, and bow in shame as we read, that at one time our
ancestors offered up human sacrifices, very popular in Britain at one time.
So we heartily rejoice that missionaries came and preached
the gospel of God’s saving grace so that converts among our forefathers set up
the Lord’s remembrance feast and spread the sacred elements in our land. Such
dates are unknown; such places are unmarked; but the sweet influence of their
faith and love has done its wonders and left behind a testimony of incalculable
value among our people.
It is cause for praise that there are so many today, though
few compared to the vast number of unbelievers, who count a day in His courts
better than a thousand elsewhere, and delight to remember their Lord. They
neither creep there by stealth, nor steal up, like Nicodemus, by night, but do
so openly and publicly, and count it their joy and delight to thus meet the
Lord at the remembrance table.
The Celebrants in Other Lands
It is also pleasing to remember that our
Lord’s sacrificial love in His death is remembered on all continents and in
practically all countries—in the great lands of China, Africa, India, and,
maybe with the exception of a few Islamic lands, in all other places of the
earth. I myself have been present at a thousand such gatherings in many lands,
from the most southerly assembly in the world to almost the most northerly;
from the most easterly in New Zealand
to the most westerly in the Americas.
Still they multiply, and the voice of adoring worship and praise never ceases
in the earth.
Thus we are part of a great family of believers, “a
multitude which no man can number,” though
we may meet in small local fellowships. These small groups, if they but thought
of themselves, could easily feel discouraged or sad. But it is not so. The Lord
is present in their midst, and they know they are loved by Him, that they are
the gift of the Father to Him, that they are a possession purchased by His own
blood. They are morsels together of the one great loaf.
There is an inseparable connection between our growth and
increase in love and appreciation for the Saviour and the observance of this
remembrance feast. Alas, we think of some who have grown cold in spiritual
affections because of the neglect of it. There is nowhere else where we can be
better established than in being engrossed and absorbed in remembering the love
of Christ in His sacrifice for us.
There, too, we should see to it that, in coming, there
is tender love for all the Lord’s people. There should be no discord among the
saints of God. It is a corporate fellowship of all who are saved by the Lord,
and the loaf on the table testifies of that oneness. We are to exclude none who
are born of God and who maintain a godly life. But we are to examine ourselves,
too. We must put away all that is offensive to our Lord, then come and enjoy
the feast with the Lord and all His redeemed ones.
O God, how wide Thy glory shines!
How high Thy wonders rise!
Known through the earth by thousand signs,
By thousands through the skies.
But when we view Thy strange design
To save rebellious worms,
Where vengeance and compassion join
In their divinest forms:
Now the full glories of the Lamb
Adorn the heavenly throne,
While saints on earth that know His name,
Their Lord and Saviour own.
–Isaac Watts
From "Worship & Remembrance" by
Daniel Smith
Used by Permission. This material is protected by copyright. © 2005 Uplook Ministries.