God, who at sunlit times and in divers
manners, spake in time past unto the fathers
by the prophets, hath in these last days
spoken unto us by his Son, whom he
hath appointed heir of all things, by whom
also he made the world, who, being the
brightness of his glory, in the express image
of his person, and upholding all things by
the word of his power, when he had
by himself purged our sins, sat down on
the right hand of the majesty on high.
Here is an example that any young men
listening who are preachers, or plan to be,
there is something well worth noting.
That in preaching through books of the Bible,
it happens so often as to be more
than a happenstance, that just when you should
preach on a certain topic, it'll be right
before you without shifting or in any wise
moving scriptures about.
I began five Sundays or four Sundays ago
preaching on the book of Hebrews.
This is Communion Sunday, and on Communion Sunday
we come to these words.
When he had by himself purged our sins,
he sat down on the right hand of
the majesty on high.
Now, if I had been selecting a year
ahead, Communion sermon I could not have in
any wise bettered this choice.
We have here in 19 English words set
forth the greatest event in human history.
There can be no doubt about that, that
no other act in the history of creation
has ever had effects so beneficial to so
many people for so long a time.
As this act of our Lord, which is
said so simply, almost quaintly here, he by
himself purged our sins.
Now, I say that this is the greatest
act ever done, greatest event in human history,
because it is so far reaching, it reaches
so many creatures, and it is so beneficial
to those creatures, and the benefit it brings
is so long enduring.
I don't think that I would ever have
made a good politician for the reason that
politicians deal with time.
And if you were to create on the
North American continent a utopia, a government equal
to Plato's Republic, or more a utopia where
there was perfection everywhere, even banished disease from
the realm, and crime, and illness, and pain,
and all these things, still it is appointed
unto men once to die.
And the citizens of this utopia would have
died one after the other, so that the
greatest statesmen, and we honor the statesmen for
what they do, but what they do is
only temporary in that we each one must
die and leave the nation which they gave
us.
But our Lord Jesus Christ gave us that
which is not only long enduring, but eternally
enduring, and I am very grateful to my
Father in heaven that he allowed me to
have a part in that which you can't
die and leave, and that which is not
temporary but will last while the ages endure.
Now it is written that he, Jesus Christ
our Lord, purged our sins, and if that
act of sin's purgation was the greatest event
in human history, the problem of human sin
is the most imperative problem in human life.
It is not sickness, it is not war,
but it has to do with the soul.
Sickness, and war, and prosperity, and all these
things have to do only with time.
But the problem of sin has to do
with time, and with eternity.
Sin has to do with this world, and
with the world to come.
And the gravity of the sin question cannot
be overstated.
Nobody has ever overstated it.
Calvin never did, Whitefield never did, Paul never
did.
No one has ever overstated the seriousness of
the sin question.
It gives it precedence over all other questions
that can face human life.
What am I going to do about sin?
I have been involved in it, I have
played along with it, I have taken it
into my bosom, it has stung me, it
has gotten into my blood, it has affected
my nerve ends, it has conditioned my mind.
I have been a collaborator with it, and
not only I, but all of us must
say this, so that this is a fatal
disease, or as I said last week, that
while sin is a disease, it is the
only disease which we deliberately bring on ourselves
and are responsible for.
But it is more than a fatal disease,
it is a capital crime.
It is a deformity in that part of
man's nature which is most like God, his
spirit.
It is deformity of the spirit, it is
treason against the great God Almighty who made
the heaven and earth, and it is a
crime against the moral order.
If you want to know what a crime
against the moral order means, let us put
it this way.
That granted that God is moral, he is
moral, and granted that nature that he made
is a moral nature, and that his kingdom
is a moral kingdom, then every time I
strike at that, I'm striking against the government
of the universe.
I'm striking against the moral government of the
universe, and sin is all this.
Now, what man's moral conscience requires is a
fund of merit that could pay the debt
of sin.
For when we strike against the kingdom of
God and against the moral order of the
universe, we put ourselves in debt to that
moral order, and we become debtors to the
great God who made the heaven and the
earth.
And sin is a debt that must be
paid, and what the moral conscience of the
man and of all men requires and cries
for is a fund of merit sufficient to
pay that debt.
We must have it, but that wouldn't be
enough.
It wouldn't be enough if someone were to
say, pick a criminal who is a tramp
off of the street, out of the slums,
and he would get ambitious to stand before
the queen, and would want to be admitted
into her presence.
Well, that might be arranged, it could be,
because many have been welcomed there, but something
would have to be done first before that
criminal could be admitted into the presence of
the queen.
You couldn't admit a criminal there, someone who
by his act had struck at the safety
of that queen and of all that she
symbolizes, so he would have to be pardoned.
Somebody would have to straighten that out, that
would be the first thing.
You couldn't have a rebel come into the
presence of the queen, it would have to
be someone who was yielding allegiance, and then
that wouldn't be enough either, because though the
government of Canada would pardon this man, so
there was nothing on the books and strike
from the record all counts against him, and
restore his citizenship so that he were a
freeborn Canadian once more, he still couldn't walk
off a skid row unshaven and dirty into
the presence of the queen.
He would have to be washed, and the
human heart knows this, or what this illustrates.
The human heart knows that he cannot enter
into the presence of God, a rebel against
that God.
There must be something done that can make
it possible for that rebellion to end, and
the rebellion itself to be forgiven, and the
act of rebellion to be pardoned completely, and
that rebel restored to full citizenship in the
kingdom of God to be made a child
of the Father.
That is done in Christ, but that's not
enough.
Just as that man could not walk dirty
and smelling and unshaven into the presence of
the queen, but would have to be groomed
and cleansed and dressed, so we cannot enter
the presence of God with the foul effect
of sin upon us.
There must be something provided, some fountain opened
in the house of David for sin and
uncleanness, that we may not be only forgiven,
but that we may be cleansed.
And the blood of Jesus Christ takes care
of that.
The Eternal Son accomplished this, this stupendous act.
He accomplished this, and this is the message
of Christianity, my brother and sister.
This is what Christianity teaches.
This is the witness the Church gives to
the world.
If she were giving the witness she's supposed
to give, this would be it.
That man's moral conscience that cries for pardon
and cleansing before the presence of the great
God is now founded by an event, by
an act done by the Eternal Son who
is the image of the invisible God and
the firstborn of every creature, and upholds all
things by the word of his power.
He turned aside to do this awful act,
this awesome, this amazing, stupendous act, and by
himself he purged our sins.
Now he alone could do it, so he
did it alone.
And I want that word alone, that little
word alone.
The poet says alone, alone.
The word is like a bell, and I
want you to hear that bell ring in
your heart today.
He did it alone because he alone could
do it.
I noticed that in other things Jesus Christ
willingly accepted help.
I noticed that when he was to be
born into the world he accepted the help
of the Virgin Mary who gave her pure
body to God and brought him into the
world, a man born a babe in Bethlehem's
manger.
I noticed that he wept in her arms
and nursed at her breast and was taken
care of and fed and loved, and he
accepted the help of his mother, and he
accepted the help of his supposed father Joseph,
the simple carpenter who worked from sunup to
sundown in order that he might make money
to buy food and clothing and shelter for
his wife and the boy, the boy Jesus.
So he willingly accepted help from Joseph, his
supposed father.
The time came when he would be baptized,
he accepted help from John the Baptist and
presented himself and said, Be it so now,
it proves us to fulfill all righteousness.
And John baptized him, but when it came
that he must have a garment, the women
went together and made him a garment without
seams, and he wore that garment, a gift
of the women.
When he was thirsty and sat on the
well, he said to the woman, Give me
to drink.
He would willingly accept water from a woman,
even a woman like that woman.
When he would ride into Jerusalem, he said,
Go into the city over against you and
you'll see a colt.
I'd bring it to me.
The Lord had need of it, and he
willingly would accept a colt's help that he
might ride triumphantly into Jerusalem.
When he was going up the hill carrying
his cross, tradition says staggered under it, Joseph
of Arimathea picked up that cross.
So our Lord was not averse to having
help in what he did, as long as
anybody could help him or there was anything
anybody could do.
But he had come to the world to
perform an act that nobody could help in.
So when they nailed him on that cross,
God pulled the blinds down all around, and
in darkness was the sun hidden and no
moon and star to shine.
But no one looking on, he by himself
heard our sins.
He could receive no help there.
Nobody could help him there, because he alone
could do it, and he did it alone.
Now that act was done without assistance, and
it's an act never to be repeated.
You will notice that though I have my
convictions about Roman Catholicism, I do not say
unkind things about the Roman.
I do not want to do it.
I do not feel anybody should say unkind
things about others, even though they're tragically and
terribly wrong.
But I cannot refrain from pointing out the
difference between the Protestant position and the Roman
position here.
It is the difference that between the two
positions, there is a great gulf fixed.
Why does that which separated Lazarus and the
rich man die?
The Romans say that the sacrifice of Christ
is a perpetual sacrifice and must be repeated,
and is repeated every time the priest speaks
the words that turns the bread into the
body of Christ and the wine into the
blood of Christ.
I have read some very clear teaching on
this by the Roman friends, and they tell
dramatically how Christ dies over and over, and
dies every Sunday, and dies every time that
mass is said, and every time the sacrament
is taken.
I think this is one of the most
tragic errors ever to creep into the faith
of the Church, for what the scripture teaches
is not a perpetual and oft-repeated sacrifice.
It teaches one finished sacrifice with perpetual efficacy.
You see the difference, sir.
If you would Christ had to die every
Sunday, then his sacrifice would only be good
for a week, or good until the next
time a priest elevated the host and whatever
they do.
But if he performed one act alone by
himself in the darkness, and that act was
good for all eternity, there's a difference between
those two positions.
Not a trifle, not something simply to divide
unnecessarily, but it's basic and final.
Now, does Christ die every Sunday, or did
Christ die once for all just for the
unjust that he might bring us to God?
The answer is, he died once for all
that he might bring us to God, and
that sacrifice has perpetual efficacy.
Though we are reminded of it, and we
celebrate it when we take communion, if we
never took communion it would still be efficacious,
because we do not slay our Lord again
when we break the body here, and we
do not shed his blood again when we
drink the wine.
That was once done and can never be
repeated, but its efficacy lasts while the ages
endure.
Now it says that he purged our sins
and sat down on the right hand of
the majesty on high.
I have told you about the great loss
we suffered, the lost concept of majesty.
You see, it has come about by a
slow decline in our appreciation of ourselves.
Remember the day time was when they believed
the earth was the center of the universe,
and that all the heavenly bodies revolved around
it.
It was a simple error, and very easy
to explain, because they went, we'll go by
our sight, and by our sight the earth
is still and everything is traveling around it.
They believed that until the time of Copernicus
and Galileo.
They came along and said, you're all wrong
about this.
The earth isn't fixed at all, the earth
is in motion around an orbit, and therefore
people said, well, then we're all wrong about
anything being fixed.
We don't believe in it anymore.
So they stopped believing that there was anything
fixed in the heavens, or at least that
the earth was fixed, and they said, well,
we're riding around on earth's diurnal course.
Then they said, well, if the earth isn't
the center of the world, man is the
center of God's creation, surely.
Not only the center, but the top of
man's creation.
They said, man is the top of the
world.
God made him and made him in his
image, and that's it.
Then along came Charles Darwin and said, you
have that all wrong.
Man is not the center and head and
top and final finished product of the creation,
and furthermore it isn't a creation at all,
but it just happened to be here.
It is simply a purpose moving, a moving
purpose, and man is simply part way up
from where he used to be to where
he's going to be.
He was once moved about in colloidal ooze,
and oozed and crept and sloshed about in
the deeps of the sea, and then the
sun struck him and he took on an
eye and he became a mud puppy, and
then the sun did some more, and after
the passing of a few more million years
he became a bird, and then after that
he became a monkey, and he were on
our way.
And here we are now, D.D. and
L.L.D. and all the rest, but
we are not where we're going and we're
not where we've been.
We're not the center of anything.
We're simply taken off, we're in motion.
So along about the turn of the century,
a little before, the world suddenly drew its
deep breath and held that breath and said,
Why can it possibly be that we are
struggling upward and that all that they used
to call sin is not sin at all?
It is something else.
It is simply the residual twitchings of the
old mud puppy.
It's the residual remnants of that which used
to be in the man, and little by
little we're purging him out.
Look at that baboon, they said in effect,
and then look at that college professor.
Quite an amazing difference.
Look at him sit there with his dreamy
look on his face while he listens to
the Beethoven symphony.
You see how far he's come?
Yep, he's come a long way.
See him two nights later when his wife
borrows him out and he turns on her
and shoots her or stabs her or walks
out on her.
He's a human being too, and his degree
hasn't changed him in any degree, if you'll
allow that.
Then they said, Well, somewhere there's something fixed.
If it isn't the earth, it's the sun.
Einstein came along and said, You've got that
all wrong.
Nothing's fixed anywhere, not even the sun.
For the sun is simply another star, and
around it's gathered the solar system.
But that isn't fixed either, because it's moving
around another star further out, and then that
whole thing is moving around another big one
still further out, and then your head begins
to ache and you say, Please quit, let
me alone.
I can't take this.
So these people who have taught us these
things, they have taken away all idea that
there's any majesty about man.
You can't believe this and then look at
a man with any respect.
You look at a man, no matter who
the man might be.
I saw the pictures of your great Canadian
founders and forebears here, very dignified old gentlemen
they are, but you couldn't look on them
with respect.
You'd see under their sight burns the marks
of the mud puppy gills, and you'd realize
they weren't dignified men made in the image
of God at all, but that they'd crept
up that far out of the gutter.
This is what they want us to believe
in, of course.
They've taken away all sense of majesty.
You can't possibly respect that which crawled up
from below.
I respect mankind.
I respect not only the dignified Canadian founders,
but I respect the men down here on
Skid Row, and I respect the woman who
isn't what she ought to be, and I
respect the poor fellow whose mind has slipped
and who goes about acting queer to the
amusement of those whose minds haven't yet slipped.
I respect everything human because it was once
made in the image of God.
And I believe with all of my heart
that man is the apex of the creation,
the top of God's universe, and God made
him for a little while lower than the
angels, only for a little lower than the
angels, that he by the grace of God
might rise above the angels.
There is a majesty there, and so the
concept of dignity has been degraded in the
world.
I've lived a few years, and I have
seen a change come over the civilized world.
Things they didn't used to talk about, they
talk about freely now.
There aren't any secrets left.
There isn't anything sacred left.
Even photograph childbirth and put it in Life
magazine.
There isn't anything that's in the world that's
sacred anymore.
Sometimes if you want a good laugh, go
to an art institute and look at modern
art.
Remember that famous thing I told you about,
that cubistic piece called Nude Descending a Stair?
There's no stair, no nude, and no descent.
Now, one man said he thought it should
have been called Cyclone in the Shingle Factory.
It would have meant the same thing and
been just as intelligible.
Down in one of the cities in the
United States here two years ago, Mandonela Nicholson
had a piece there, had a picture displayed
on exhibit, and the old boys pulling on
their little Van Dykes were going about looking
all these pictures over, and they picked on
this one.
They said, this one by Nicholson, this will
give first prize.
But he, in the meantime, had to go
somewhere else and couldn't stay around for the
honor, so they wired him.
Your picture has been chosen for first honors.
Please wire instructions.
Which side's up?
Now, that happened.
It's not a story, that happened.
Art, literature, and music.
Maybe I'm wrong about this, I don't know.
You know, it's easy to see the grass
on your own lawn doesn't look as green
as the grass a little further away across
the street.
But I wonder if we have the quality
of men we used to have in government.
I doubt it.
Friend of mine in Chicago, incidentally, his brother's
a Christian, he probably knew him, Francis Chase.
When Kennedy and Nixon were running against each
other for temporary tenancy in that White House,
Mr. Chase said, he was an artist before,
and he looked at their two faces and
said, oh brother, compare them with Washington and
Jefferson, Webster.
It doesn't look to me as if the
higher type of men ran for office now.
Men you can't very well respect.
I listen a lot to interviews where politicians
are being interviewed.
I've done that for years.
That's my humorous, relaxing work.
And I, it amuses me to say, now,
Senator, tell us, what do you think about
this question?
Well, now, gentlemen, I stand on my record
about that.
I said in 1946, you'll remember that, and
he talks a while, and when he's finished,
he said to himself, now, what did he
say?
He hadn't said a thing.
We're putting men in office now who are
adept at saying nothing and taking a long
time to say it.
But it's because a sense of majesty has
been lost to it, a sense of dignity
is gone.
We don't care whether it's true or not,
if it's funny.
We don't care whether it's truth or not,
if it's said in an acute way.
Brethren, I want to warn you, the majesty
is still in the heavens.
I want to warn you, the majesty still
sits on his throne, the awful majesty, before
whom angels and archangels and seraphim and cherubim
continue to cry, holy, holy, holy Lord God
of Sabbath.
And when this one who was God by
himself alone purged our sins, he went right
back and sat down where he had been
through the long, long ages, at the right
hand of the majesty in the heavens.
And he sat down on that right hand,
and the eternal Son returned to man.
Don't forget it.
A gentleman has been writing me from some
town.
He's a brother of Dr. Walter Wilson, the
brother of the famous preacher.
He's lamenting to me that nobody talks about
a man being in the glory at all.
He said he interviewed a number of ministers,
outstanding, leading men, and asked him this question,
Do you believe that Jesus Christ at God's
right hand is a man or something else?
And only a very few of them believed
that Jesus Christ was a man.
They believed he was a man when he
was on earth, but they think he's the
Spirit now.
He said, Spirit hath not flesh and blood
as you see me have, didn't he?
And he said that after his resurrection.
The man is at the right hand of
God.
He's a man.
He is God, but he's a man.
Just as he was man and God down
here, he's God and man up there.
And the years of his earth walk and
the deadly pain of his dying and the
godlike act of purgation finished, he went to
the right hand of God.
God gave him approval, approved his person, and
approved the perfection of his atoning work.
From his high honored position there, he shed
down the Holy Ghost and works in through
his people.
Ah, he died alone.
Would Jesus have the sinner die?
Why hangs he then on yonder tree?
What means that strange expiring cry?
Sinner, he died for you and me.
Forgive him, Father, oh, forgive.
He knows not that by, it is by
me he lives.
Father, we pray thy blessing upon the Word
given.
We pray that thou wilt help us, that
our faith might mount up like an eagle,
stretch its broad wings and soar so high
that nothing can pull it down.
And as the eagle can look upon the
sun, we pray that we may look upon
thy Holy Son at the right hand of
the Majesty, and that we may be grateful
to the point of tears and tenderness that
he who was God and very God of
very God, gave himself and hung on yonder
tree.
Bless us as we receive of the Lord's
Supper.
In Christ's name, Amen.