In our study of Mark we have recently seen Jesus' explanation of his primary mission to his disciples in Mark 9:31;

Jesus Christ entered the human race so that He could fulfill the Father's plan as savior of the world through His substitutionary spiritual death and spiritual victory on the cross,

Our celebration of the Lord's table recalls that spiritual victory, God's strategic victory that Jesus Christ accomplished while he was on the earth in unglorified humanity.

Under the principle of pivot power, Jesus Christ is the pattern for humility and obedience to the Father's plan. Luke 22:42;

Our celebration of the Lord's Table is an expression of our reciprocal love for our Lord who is the strategic victor of time and eternity. We concentrate on him through the elements of the only ritual for the post-canon period of the Church Age Luke 22:19-20;

Jesus Christ was obedient to the Father's unique plan for His life by enduring the suffering and death on the cross Phil 2:8; that resulted in his humanity being exalted above every created being, such that, every created being will ultimately bow down to him. Phil 2:9-10;

He completely and perfectly fulfilled the directive will of the Father by unilaterally providing a way of salvation for everyone. Rom 5:8; as the "lamb slain from the foundation of the world" Rev 13:8; KJV John 1:29;

While we were enemies of God, God demonstrated his love for us by giving his uniquely born Son "monogenes" who entered the world through the virgin birth. John 3:16

As a result, God is free to reconcile mankind from their fallen state of depravity without compromising his perfect righteousness and justice because TLJC willingly laid down his life for us as our substitute. John 15:13; 1John 3:16

This is why believing in TLJC is the only way to a relationship with God John 14:6, salvation Acts 4:12 and eternal life John 3:16;

Anyone can appropriate this Grace gift of salvation which is secured by the Power of God John 10:26-29; simply by believing in TLJC 1Cor 15:3-4 in the same way that Paul and Silas instructed the Philippian Jailer who asked "what Must I do to be saved?"

Their response recorded In Acts 16:31

Anyone, any time, anywhere can become saved in a moment in time simply by believing in TLJC privately in their thoughts only.

TLJC left his friends, the members of The Royal Family of God, this one and only ritual in the church age The Lord's table which we are mandated to observe in remembrance of Him.

The mandate is found in 1Cor 11:24; in the second person plural present active imperative of the Greek word " poieo" that where Paul references TLJC's own instruction found in Luke 22:19-20;

An expanded translation of 1Cor 11:24 taking into consideration the tense mood and voice of "poieo" would be " Keep on doing this in remembrance of me"

Because these verbs are only imperatives regarding ritual in the New Testament the Lord's Table is one and only ritual of the Church Age and it is a test of our capacity to concentrate on our Lord Jesus Christ through the Bible Doctrine that is resident in our soul as we partake of the elements that represent his work on our behalf.

We have these instructions for partaking of the Lord's table from the Apostle Paul starting in verse 26 of 1Cor 11.

1Cor 11:26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until He comes.
27 Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner, shall be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord.
28 But a man must examine himself, and in so doing he is to eat of the bread and drink of the cup.
29 For he who eats and drinks, eats and drinks judgment to himself if he does not judge the body rightly.
30 For this reason many among you are weak and sick, and a number sleep.
31 But if we judged ourselves rightly, we would not be judged.

We understand from this that we are to evaluate ourselves in the light of the word, privately in our thinking, in the privacy of our priesthood, and when we find we are outside of the word, we apply the first problem solving device, and simply acknowledge the sin as described in 1 John 1:9;

If we acknowledge our sins he is faithful and righteous to forgive our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.

Having examined ourselves, and taken appropriate action, we are then instructed to partake of the elements, the bread and the cup.

The bread which represents his body in which he bore the sins and the judgment for our sins and the sins of the whole world, past present and future.

1Cor 11:23 For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus in the night in which He was betrayed took bread;
1Cor 11:24 and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, This is My body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of Me.

eat the bread

The cup which represents his substitutionary spiritual death on the cross which purchased the freedom from spiritual death and eternal condemnation of everyone who believes in him.

1Cor 11:25 In the same way He took the cup also after supper saying This cup is the new covenant in my Blood do this as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.

drink cup

In our study of Mark we are in Mark 9:42; where Jesus warns his disciples regarding their attitude toward children and new believers and from this took up a study of how those who propagandize and deceive children or new believers become targets of God's discipline.

This is because God had delegated responsibility to adults, especially parents, to care for the children's souls. Prov 22:6; Eph 6:4; KJV

No adult is allowed to use verbal deception to create an obstacle to a child's belief in the truth in any category that causes him to go astray.

The emphasis in our passage is on the Gospel of salvation but the principle applies to all areas of divine truth.

Adults who propagandize children into placing their faith in panaceas, ideologies, philosophies, or religious dogmas so that they are deluded from believing the truth are subject to judgment from the heavy millstone committee.

Progressives who use education and media deceive children regarding divine establishment principles fall under the condemnation found in this passage.

Our nation's obsession with removing biblical principles that teach traditional ethics and values from the classroom is producing generations of children with no virtue.

This lack of virtue makes it impossible for them to resist the siren call of the OSN so they have no means of resisting being sucked into the vortex of satan's evil resulting in evil being compounded with evil to such an extent that they give themselves over to it. Eph 4:19; and they become irrecoverable without severe pressure. Rom 1:24;

There are several key areas of "skandalizo" that have done irreparable harm to the souls of the children in our nation over the course of the last 50 years.

One subject that falls under this description is sex education. That started as nothing more than a tutorial on fornication with heavy emphasis on prevention of pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases and now addresses homosexuality and other deviant practices as if they were normal.

It is child abuse for children are made aware of such details. It is not the responsibility of any school involved in training the minds of other peoples' children to address such topics.

Sex education is a subject that is based on establishment principles and should be a private issue between children and their parents.

For Christians the subject has theological implications since there is a mandate in God's Word that restricts sexual relationships to a man and a woman within the boundaries of marriage and Christian marriage represents the relationship between Christ and His Church. Eph 5:25;

The schools refuse to include these biblical concepts in their curriculum since the progressives' disinformation and deception campaign has created a public lie that considers discussion of biblical concepts within a public school to be a violation of the Constitution.

Thus the public school systems of this nation are completely unprepared, unqualified, and unwilling to present the subject in any method whatsoever other than as skandalizo.

This causes the children to go astray and renders the public school systems subject to judgment of the heavy millstone committee in the supreme court of heaven.

Another subject that the schools are completely unqualified to address is that of climate change formerly known as global warming which has developed into an anti-theology that is closely associated to the anti-theology of evolution.

The anti-theology of evolution has itself become a sacred cow that is now beyond criticism. The concept of the Big Bang apparently has won out in the scientific debate regarding the origins of the universe.

However, the issue that cosmologists will not consider or confront is the principle of cause and effect: if the Big Bang was the initial cause of the universe then what caused the Big Bang?

The anti-theology of Evolution contends that biological life spontaneously came from non-living matter. Cosmologists assert that matter and energy from which biological life evolved has existed forever.

This conclusion however is not reached by the application of the scientific method but instead by the recognition that if matter and energy were created it would infer the existence of a Creator.

This of course would force the progressive cosmologists to cross the threshold from pseudo-science into religion and that would be blasphemous to their anti-theology.

The opening passage of the Bible in Gen 1:1; starts with the beginning of the universe. But what was happening before the beginning? According to the biblical tradition of the Jewish rabbis, what was before the beginning cannot be known.

This is based on the first letter of the first word in the Bible. Tradition teaches that all aspects of the Bible have significance, even the shapes of the letters. The first letter of the first word of the Bible is the Hebrew letter "B" ( beth).

It is on this seemingly irrelevant fact that the sages based their understanding that any knowledge of what preceded that beginning is unattainable by empirical investigation.

This is because the shape of the Hebrew "B" (beth) is such that it is closed on three sides and open only in the forward direction with its opening facing to the left, as Hebrew is written from right to left.

Because the Bible begins with a letter that is bounded on all sides except the forward, so the events that occur after "the beginning" are those that are accessible to human investigation but those that preceded the beginning, that is the creation, are not open to investigation.

Cosmology also teaches that pre-Big Bang information cannot be known because events preceding the appearance of matter and space cannot be studied.

As the theories of the early universe reach back to the beginning, they describe a condition in which all the matter is pressed into a space of zero size and infinite density.

Infinity cannot be dealt with quantitatively and so cosmologists cannot describe the conditions of our absolute origin in real terms. If we relate to real world dimensions, that zero point of time, "the beginning", is beyond the grasp of mathematics and physics.

Because creation ex nihilo (out of nothing) cannot be learned from simple observations of nature, both Plato and Aristotle believed that the matter of the universe must be eternal.

The founders of the Judeo-Christian theology considered that "nothing" was quite sufficient to provide the start of our universe because the Bible reveals that God created it from the invisible. Heb 11:3; Col 1:15-17;