This is a Table of rejoicing and peace. We have gathered here in order to overflow with thanksgiving.
But what of sin? Shouldn’t we examine ourselves as we come to the Table? No, but not because we shouldn’t examine ourselves. While we are here, we are to be singing, rejoicing, thanking God, and looking around at our brothers and sisters in love. In order to do this, we do have to deal with sin, but that should have happened a bit earlier. We wash up for dinner, but not at the table.
So how does God deal with our sin? The Puritan William Bridge rightly said that affliction is God’s soap. The martyrs who gathered before the throne did so in white robes, and the robes were white because of Christ’s blood, but it also said that they had come out of the great tribulation. Affliction is one of the ways God uses to apply Christ’s blood to us. “Forasmuch then as Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves likewise with the same mind: for he that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin” (1 Pet. 4:1).
So affliction is God’s soap, and when we confess our sins, whether at the time, or at the beginning of the service here, we are rinsing off what God has done. Sin is abandoned in repentance, and God is marvelously wise in all the ways He brings repentance to us. The center of our problems is always pride, and nothing gets to pride in the heart of a saint like affliction does.
And when this happens, we are truly humbled. Humility is consistent with abundant fruit. When a branch is laden with heavy fruit, that is when it bows down the lowest. When a perky little branch is sticking up out of the top of the tree, as jaunty as anything, the one thing we can be sure of is that there is little or no fruit on it.
So come, and welcome, to Jesus Christ.