Summary of Matthew 26:26-29

Eat the the bread and drink from the cup, for Christ was sacrificed for the forgiveness of sins

God in his mercy has given the church means of grace, by which we grow and mature in the faith. These means are ordinarily the word of God and prayer. By reading and listening to and meditating on the word of God and listening to preaching, our faith is strengthened. This occurs also when we pray; we pray because we need God’s help and love and grace day by day. Prayer and the Bible are daily means of grace. And so is fellowship with other Christians. We need other Christians in the church. We need each other’s encouragement and prayer and sometimes also correction. But with these means of grace, God has also given us two sacraments, or ordinances, or we can say symbols, by which our faith is strengthened. Humans are accustomed to using symbols to remind each other of events and/or each other’s love. Take for example Valentine’s Day. During this time of the year, spouses give each other roses and gifts, to let one another know that they love one another. The chocolate or flowers are symbols or representations of our love. So, it was when we got married. Your husband or wife gave you a ring. The ring is a symbol of unending or enduring love. At Christmas we give each other gifts to remind us of the gift God gave us in Christ, and we give each other gifts because we view each other as special. Gifts are emblems or tokens or symbols of love. And so, in the church, God wanted to leave us with symbols, two visible symbols of his love for us. The first is baptism, and this symbolises the Christian’s union with Christ, that as Christ died for our sins and rose from the dead, so at conversion, and by faith, we died with Christ to sin, to our old life, and now we live with him in newness of life. Baptism is a symbol that the old has died and the new has come because of the gospel.

And so, the Lord’s Supper that Christ instituted the night he was betrayed was instituted, and the elements were given for us to be visible reminders, symbols, of Christ’s love for us; they are tokens, emblems of his love. And whenever we celebrate the Lord’s Supper, there is sadness with joy mixed together. Sadness because of the costly price Christ had to pay to redeem us but also joy because of the redemption he achieved. It is a solemn and serious institution and should never be taken lightly.

God didn’t command us to hang crosses around our necks, or to make statues of Jesus, or to have a crucifix on our wall. Although a cross is a reminder of the death of Christ. But God didn’t command us to have other symbols when we worship him. These two ordinances are enough and sufficient with the other means of grace, singing, prayer, the Bible, and preaching to establish us in the faith.

Today we are reminded of the significance of the new covenant and the covenant God made in eternity past, and that without this covenant, without Jesus giving his life and dying as a substitute, paying for our sins, heaven would have none. The redemption of those fallen in sin depended on Christ going to the cross and him shedding his blood.

We are also reminded not to neglect this means of grace. God commanded his disciples to take and eat and to drink, signifying that we need to internalise and appropriate Christ by faith. God seeks communion with us, and we need to not skim over the means of grace but make use of them so our souls may be satiated by grace.

God’s Eternal Redemptive Plan Realized Through Judas’ Horrendous Apostasy – Matthew 26:14-25

https://www.youtube.com/live/0fijWdicYMg?si=461UYHqYl-kpthnU

Elder Nico exposites Matthew 26:14-25

I. The Root of an Apostate Heart
II. The Machinations and Corruption of Judas
III. The Significance of Passover
IV. Jesus Identifies His Betrayer
V. The Unfolding of God’s Eternal Purpose
VI. The Dreadful End of an Apostle.

“When we sin, we too betray God”

Summary of the parable of the talents

The tragic reality in much of Western society and agnostic and atheistic societies is the belief that after we die, there will be no life after death and no reckoning, no accountability to a higher being, whom we call God. Countless millions have been brainwashed that we come from goo, to the zoo, to you. That from a cosmic accident life came to be, and from microscopic cells came irreducibly complex animals and humans. The evolution theory is being taught as fact across the nations and universities of the world. This false religion, called evolution, has devastating consequences. If you believe in this fairy tale, life becomes meaningless, and moral absolutes become relative, and the consequence is that if you believe there is no Creator God and we are not made in his image, you will believe when we die, we will go back to dust and cease to exist. Countless millions believe there is no eternality of the soul, there is no life after death, and if there is no life after death and no God, there is no accountability. But human existence screams against this belief. No human being is not accountable to other human beings, even in the most barbaric society or liberal form of government. Life itself teaches us, and culture and society and the family unit, that we are accountable to other human beings for how we speak and behave. And this is the one great reality that we all have to face, not only in the church but as all human beings. We are accountable to God for how we live and what we do with the things God has given us. We do not belong to ourselves. We all belong ultimately to God. He gave us all life and breath and abilities and opportunities and time and money and resources, and we will give an account to God when Christ comes again at his second coming of how we have managed these things, the things he gave us. No one will be exempt. Some have been given more resources and abilities and “talents”, and some less, but all will stand before God one day and give an account to God, those in the visible church and those outside the visible church. This is what this parable is about. To call us all to diligence and not to waste or misuse or neglect our time and money and talents and opportunities but to use them for the glory of God.

The last two parables (of the talents and sheep and goats) also have in view, as the previous two, the coming of the Lord. The parable of the talents deals mainly with those in the visible church, although a wider application can be made. At Christ’s second coming there will be a reckoning, and then all his servants, the good and the bad ones, will stand before him. In the previous parable the focus was on being vigilant, to make sure we are indeed of those who have saving faith, who are justified, who are born again. We need to watch our lives and examine our lives to see whether we are in the faith. This parable deals with how we steward God’s resources, God’s gifts to us, and whether we are faithful with the responsibilities and tasks given to us. And as we will see, it is not only sins of commission that will count against the unbeliever, but also the sins of omission. To do nothing is to waste God’s talents. What God is looking for in his servants are faithfulness, diligence and industriousness. In other words, those who have saving faith produce gospel fruit, and vice versa.