Bread and Wine

For out of it was thou taken, for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return. Now, Genesis chapter 9, verse 20. Noah began to be in husbandman, and he planted a vineyard.

And he drank of the wine, and was drunken, and he was uncovered within his tent. And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw that a nakedness, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren without. And Shem and Japheth took a garment, and laid it upon both their shoulders, and went backward, and covered the nakedness of their father.

And their faces were backward, and they saw not their father's nakedness. And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done unto him. And he said, Cursed be Canaan, a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren.

And another reading over in chapter, I think it's 14, verse 17. And the king of Sodom, king of Sodom, went out to meet him, after his return from the slaughter of Kerdol Elmer, and of the kings that were with him, the valley of Sheba, which is the king's dale. And Melchizedek, king of Salem, brought forth bread and wine, and he was a priest of the Most High God.

And he blessed him, and said, Blessed be Abram of the Most High God, possessor of heaven and earth. And blessed be the Most High God, which hath delivered thine enemies into thy hand. Now maybe that's all we need.

Well, chapter 15, verse 1. After these things, the word of the Lord came unto Abram in a vision, saying, Fear not, Abram, I am thy shield and thy exceeding great reward. And Abram said, Lord God, what wilt thou give me? Saying, I go childless, and the steward of my house is this Eliezer of Damascus. And Abram said, Behold, to me thou hast given no seed, and lo, one born of my house is mine heir.

And behold, the word of the Lord came unto him, saying, This shall not be thine heir, but he that shall come forth out of thine own bowels shall be thine heir. Now we know that God will bless the reading of his word. Just a few simple thoughts we will have been taken up in the Bible reading with the bread and the wine.

And I just thought I wasn't thinking of this during the Bible reading, but just now we have the first mention of bread in the Bible. And it's not a very good thing because it's linked with a curse. The curse came in because of Adam's sin, and he's going to eat bread by the sweat of his brow.

And then the first mention of wine is associated with a curse as well. For we have Noah planting a vineyard and drinking of the wine, and so on. Curse would be Canaan.

But when we come to the next mention of bread and wine, they're linked together. And it's wonderful, isn't it, that when they're linked together, they speak of blessing. A curse, the Lord Jesus bore the curse of the law, and the ground was cursed.

He wore the thorns that didn't belong to the creation on his brow. But now here's Abraham, and we have him after the battle, strengthened by the bread and the wine. Now, of course, you know that he's not talking about the remembrance of the Lord here, the bread and the wine that he brought.

But yet, it would make us think of it, and at least we know this, their great blessing associated with it. He was strengthened so that he could withstand the offer of the King of Sodom, that I don't want anything lest the world make thee rich. We don't need anything of the world, and when we gather together to remember the Lord, we're not thinking about the world.

But we're thinking about the great blessings that we'll have in the Lord Jesus Christ. Melchizedek, of course, is a type of the Lord Jesus, and in this type, it's a type of revelation. He's one that would reveal things, and he's one that would bless.

And we have here Abraham, and he's blessed. Behold, I am thy shield and thy exceeding great reward. Didn't need anything else.

If these armies come after you, you don't have to worry about it. I'm your shield. I'll protect you.

But I'm your exceeding great reward. And linked with it, what do we have? We have the promise of a son. Now, when we remember the Lord, and again, I'm not saying that this is a remembrance of the Lord, but it would remind us of it.

And when we remember the Lord, we think of the son that was given. Abraham had to look forward to that. It was a tremendous thing, great revelation to him.

You're going to have a son. But isn't that a wonderful thing when we can gather together, the bread that we bless. What a great privilege it is to be able to remember the Lord.

I think sometimes we can become used to these things, and just come and go. But may the Lord help us each time we gather together to really enter into it. What a great blessing it is.

What beautiful picture. You couldn't have any other way. There's no better way to bring to memory, to bring the memory of the Lord forward, Lord's day by Lord's day, until the day when he's going to come.

We're to show the Lord's death till he come. Abraham was looking for a son to come, to be born into the world. And through him, all the nations of the earth would be blessed.

And here we are as a result of that son. And not speaking about Isaac now, of course, the son that would be given the Lord himself. And because of that, we have that great blessing.

And we can gather together in scriptural simplicity. It's wonderful to remember him. Surely our hearts have been drawn out in worship.

Worship is spontaneous, not something you get out of a prayer book or any other place. It's a welling up of the heart, because of an appreciation we have for the Lord Jesus Christ, the son that was given, that is depicted for us in the bread and in the wine.