1A further section of the application of a sermon on Hebrews 11:28: “Through faith he kept the passover, and the sprinkling of blood, lest he that destroyed the firstborn should touch them”. It is taken, with editing, from By Faith, a volume of Manton’s sermons on Hebrews 11. Previous sections have dealt with preparation for the Lord’s Supper.
See that you stir up faith. It is not enough to have it, but it must be exercised – ay, and in a vigorous manner: “When the king sitteth at his table, my spikenard sendeth forth the smell thereof” (Song 1:12). Here faith is to be exercised. It is to be a twofold faith, a faith that respects our whole duty, and one that more specially goes out to the person of Christ:
1. A Faith That Respects Our Whole Duty
A faith that respects our whole duty, and is nothing but an expectation of the blessings of God’s ordinances, or the comforts annexed to them by promise. And certainly they act merely by habit who do not look to the purpose of the service but, like a horse and mule, go on in a course of duties and observances without considering why: “What went ye out into the wilderness for to see?” (Mt 11:7). Man is to have an end in view in every serious business, but especially in the duties of worship, which are the most important actions of our lives. Now God has not only appointed the work but also the ends to be promoted by it. The work is commanded by God, and the ends and benefits are in the promise. The command is the reason for the duty, and the promise is our great encouragement.
Now, as you use this ordinance, you must consider that, because it was instituted by Christ, it has a blessing. When He instituted it, He did so with prayer; He prayed over it to bless it for our use, and therefore we must use it in faith, in the face of all discouragements; we must continue waiting when success is not visible at once, saying, It is God’s ordinance, and I will wait: “They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength” (Is 40:31); and I will use God’s means: “Surely shall one say, In the Lord have I righteousness and strength” (Is 45:24). Christ will be master of His own mercies; He keeps the dispensing of grace in His own hands, and gives it out when He pleases, not at our command, as if it were a debt due to us. God is free, not bound to our time and to the measure we expect. It is good to be waiting on God’s way.
2. A Faith That Goes Out to the Person of Christ
A faith that goes out to the person of Christ. The duty was ordained by Christ, and it is well observed when it leads you to Christ. Here Christ makes a new offer of Himself: “Take, eat, this is My body”. Now certainly we are to take and accept an offered Saviour, with His benefits. Christ makes here an offer of Himself as our Lord and Saviour to bring us into favour with God, to wash us from our sins in His blood, to call us from deserved wrath to undeserved mercy and happiness, to dwell in us by His Spirit as a fountain of living waters, or of everlasting refreshing.
Accordingly we are to take and eat – to eat His flesh, and drink His blood, to receive of His fulness “and grace for grace” (Jn 1:16). We are to receive Him into our hearts, to trust in His merits, to rejoice in His love, to give ourselves up in a perpetual covenant that shall not be forgotten: “Gather My saints together unto Me, those that have made a covenant with Me by sacrifice” (Ps 50:5). So you ought to sue out your pardon, to renew your charter of grace for the confirmation of your hopes. Look on the blood of Christ as the price of reconciliation; set open the doors of your hearts, that He may live in your heart and by His Spirit keep there up an everlasting day of refreshing.