TWO CUPS
TWO CUPS
Sunday, October 28, 2012, the Year of Our Lord
Pastor Carolyn Sissom
At the Last Supper, Jesus drank from two cups.
The “cup” is so significant and is figurative of one’s lot or experience, either joyous or sorrowful. For the Biblical writers, what gives a “cup” significance is not its appearance, but its contents. A cup may hold a blessing---liquid that sustains, life, quenches thirst, engenders fellowship---or it may hold a curse---liquid that induces drunkenness or even death.
Jesus Christ drank to the full the cup of suffering for humanity’s sins.
Mt. 20:22: Jesus speaking to the mother of Zebedee and to his disciples when she asked that her two sons desiring that they would sit on the left and right side of Him when he came into His Kingdom. Jesus replied, “You do not know what you ask. Are you able to drink of the cup, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized… They said unto him, ‘we are able’.(vs.23) “You shall drink indeed of my cup, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with; but to sit on my right hand, and on my left, is not mine to give, but it shall be given to them for whom it is prepared of my Father.”
I have prayed many times asking the Lord of the significance of the “two cups” at the Lord’s Supper. I don’t claim to have the revelation, but believe the first cup is prophetic of the disciples’ ‘taking up their cross’ in their ministry of establishing the church.
Luke 22:17-20: “Jesus took the cup, and gave thanks, and said, take this, and divide it among yourselves. For I say unto you, ‘I will not drink of the fruit of the vine, until the Kingdom of God shall come’. And He took bread, and gave thanks, and broke it, and gave it to them saying, ‘This is my body which is given for you, this do in remembrance of me. Likewise also the cup after supper, sayings this cup is the New Testament in my blood which is shed for you.’”
The first “cup” is symbolic of their response when he asked them if they were able to drink of His cup. He passed His cup around to each of the disciples and each one drank from the same cup. Paul declared, “the cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the “Blood of Christ”? (1 Cor. 10:16a).
Like Joseph, Jesus’ was a silver cup of redemption and salvation (Gen. 44:2). Those full brothers (like Benjamin) have the cup of Joseph in their sacks.
Benjamin did not ask for the silver cup, nor did he know that he was carrying it. Joseph ordered that the silver cup be planted in the sack of his full brother. Benjamin’s life was chosen as the redemption of all of Israel during the time of famine. He was the ‘elect”. His name means “son of the right hand” It has also been translated “son of good fortune, prosperity”. Those who drink from Jesus’ cup are the sons of the right-hand company.
Jesus Christ, our Elder Brother, is the ascended, glorified, and exalted Son of God, whom the Father raised from the dead and set at His own right hand in heavenly places far above all things (Eph. 1: 20-23). David prophesied of the Messiah, “The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit at My right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool” (Ps. 110:1)”
The Father exalted Jesus at His right hand to be a Prince and a Savior (Acts 5:31). The risen One at the right hand of God ever intercedes for us (Rom. 8:34). Jesus devoured “the prey” on resurrection morning, and then began to “divide the spoil” with the strong (Gen. 49:27; Is. 53: 12; Lk. 22:22).
Matthew 22:20, Jesus’ instructions to the twelve apostles was to, “take the cup, and divide it among yourselves.” The spoils of the Kingdom represent the power, anointing, and Glory of the Lord to establish His Kingdom on earth as it is in Heaven.
God’s sons have been born again, given a new name or nature. The “old man,” the first Adam, “the son of sorrow,” has been replaced with the “new man” our new nature in Christ (1 Cor. 15: 44-49). Overcoming Christians, full brothers, in Jesus (who is typified by Joseph) are granted the privilege to sit with Him in His throne. Although the “silver cup” of the “fellowship of His suffering” is in the sack of Benjamin, the blessings are far greater, for Benjamin’s mess was five times as much (Gen. 44:12; 43:24; 45:22). The ministry of Benjamin (the right-hand company) will help to reconcile the brethren back to the Elder Brother (2 Cor. 5: 17-21). Moses prophesied of Benjamin, “The beloved of the Lord shall dwell in safety by Him; and the Lord shall cover him all the day long, and he shall dwell between His shoulders.”
Jesus’ cup is a silver cup of redemption and salvation.
Because Jesus drinks the cup of death, He can offer his followers the cup of the New Testament. “Drink from it all of you,” Jesus tells the disciples at the Last Supper. All who accept Jesus’ sacrifice for themselves can appropriate the blessings of forgiveness; fellowship with God and other believers; and certainty of eternal life in full covenant through the righteousness of Jesus’ blood.
1 Cor. 11:24-25: “When he had given thanks, he broke it (the bread) and said, Take, eat, this is my body, which is broken for you; this do in remembrance of me’. After the same manner also he took the cup, when he had supped, saying, ‘This cup is the New Testament in my blood’ this do as oft as you drink it, in remembrance of me.”
The New Testament (New covenant) contains forgiveness of sins, redemption, eternal salvation, love, comfort, strength, fellowship, and power, repairer of the breach between God and man; and all the Glory of the Cross.
However, any who take Jesus’ sacrifice lightly or reject it completely will find themselves drinking the cup of God’s judgment.
This past Tuesday we were studying Babylon the Great. The scripture in Rev. 16:19: again quickened my Spirit regarding the “cups” of the Lord. It is the Lord who gives Mystery Babylon her cup. Rev. 16:19: “The great city was divided into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell; and great Babylon came in remembrance before God, to give unto the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath.
Rev. 17:6-7: “I saw the woman drunk with the blood of the saints and with the blood of the witnesses of Jesus. When I saw her, I wondered greatly. The angel said to me, ‘Why do you wonder’?
Having in her hand a gold cup full of abominations and of the unclean things of her immorality…”
The literal Babylon was a gold cup in the Hand of the Lord. The righteous are blessed with the cup of His blessings (Ps. 16:5), but the wicked will taste the cup of His wrath.
Drunkenness may seem a mild picture for divine wrath compared to the horrors of war, natural disaster and disease that God is shown visiting on sinners. But in a way, the cup of wrath is a particularly dark symbol of judgment. The image of the cup of wrath carries special horror because drinking (unlike being overtaken by battle, earthquake or plague) is something a person does deliberately. Drunkenness implies a humiliating progression. People begin confident of their power to handle the “wine”, but it eventually masters them.
Proverbs 23:31-34: “Do not look upon the wine when it is red, when it gives his color in the cup, when it moves itself aright. At the last it bites like a serpent and stings like an adder.”
Jer. 51:7-8: “Babylon has been a golden cup in the Lord’s Hand that made all of the earth drunken: the nations have drunken of her wine; therefore the nations are mad. Babylon is suddenly fallen and destroyed; howl for her; take balm for her pain, if so she may be healed.”
The church has preached alcohol and drunkenness as sin with a hammer in our hands. However, I think we should be preaching drunkenness as a plague. According to this scripture in the end-times, the plague of drunkenness will cause people to go mad. All of us have seen this “madness” on loved ones or friends whose brains are soaked in alcohol. This state of drunkenness is here spoken of as an end-time plague on all nations.
Psalm 75:8: “”In the hand of the Lord there is a cup, and the wine is red; it is full of mixture; and the pours out of the same; but the dregs thereof, all the wicked of the earth shall wring them out, and drink them.”
Psalm 75 is a Song of Divine Intervention on behalf of the sanctuary. This is the song of true promotion. It comes from the North, out of Zion. The Mother of the Sons of Zebedee asks for the honor of divine favor that her sons would sit one on the left and the other on the right when Christ came into His Kingdom. 75:5-8: “Do not lift up your horn on high; do not speak with a stiff neck. Promotion comes neither from the east, nor from the west, nor from the south. God is the judge; he puts down one, and sets up another. For in the hand of the Lord there is a cup…”
As exampled by Jesus, each Christian must pray to drink the cup of the Father’s will. It is those who like the disciples will say, “Yes” to the “call”, these are the sons of the right hand company.
Jesus knelt down and prayed, saying, “‘Father If you be willing, remove this cup from me; nevertheless not my will, but thine be done.’ There appeared an angel unto him from heaven, strengthening him. Being in an agony he prayed more earnestly; and his sweat as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground.”
Before I went into full time ministry, the Lord spoke to me and told me I would have to drink from his cup. I wasn’t as brave as Jesus. I prayed three-days to not have to drink from his cup. I knew it was going to mean following Him to the cross. Finally after three-days, my faith was strong enough to say, “Yes”. It was probably around this time of the year in 1989. By Christmas of that year, the full dregs of the cup were emptied. Surely an Angel came to strengthen me, or I would not have been able to do what was before me. The Lord appeared to me that Christmas in His red robe and served me communion.
I had to take a stand in order to be able to break free from the cup of trembling and thus fulfill His call on my life which is still unfolding. It was the idols of my soul from which I had to be delivered.
Isa. 51: 17-23L “Awake, awake, stand up, O Jerusalem, which has drunk at the hand of the Lord the cup of his fury; you have drunken the dregs of the cup of trembling, and wrung them out. There is none to guide her among all the sons whom she has brought forth; neither is there any that takes her by the hand of all the sons that she has brought up. These two things are come unto you; who shall be sorry for you? Desolation, and destruction, and the famine, and the sword; by whom shall I comfort you? Your sons have fainted, they lie at the head of all the streets, as a wild bull in a net; they are full of the fury of the Lord, the rebuke of your God. Therefore hear now this, you afflicted, and drunken, but not with wine; thus says your Lord, the Lord, and thy God that pleads the cause of his people. Behold I have taken out of your hand the cup of trembling, even the dregs of the cup of my fury; you shall no more drink it again; but I will put into the hand of them that afflict you, which have said to your soul, bow down, that we may go over; and you have laid your body as the ground, and as the street, to them that went over.”
The cup is the portion, lot and inheritance of every son. It is a unique fellowship with the Lord Himself. “Yes, you shall indeed drink of my cup.”
1 Cor. 10:16: “The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the Blood of Christ? The bread when we break, is it not the communion of the Body of Christ.?
The Mother of the sons of Zebedee certainly did not know what she was asking, but her sons did drink from the Lord’s cup and are surely seated with Him in heavenly places as full brothers of the Son of God.
Carolyn Sissom, Pastor
Eastgate Ministries, Inc.
Scripture from K.J.V.; I entered into the labors of Dictionary of Biblical Imagery; Understanding Types and Shadows by: Kelly Varner; Sermon preached by: Pastor Carolyn Sissom, The Two Cups 7/1/2000 and Bible Teaching of Revelation, Chapter 17, Babylon the Great 10/23/12, the Year of Our Lord.