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 worlds, who, being the
brightness of his glory and the express image
of his person, and upholding all things by
the word of his power, when he hath
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,
here 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 will be right before
you without shifting or in any wise moving
the scriptures about.
I began four Sundays ago to preach on
the book of Hebrews.
This is Communion Sunday, and on Communion Sunday
we come to these words.
When he hath by himself purged our sins,
he sat down on the right hand of
the Majesty on high.
If I had been selecting a year ahead
for the 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.
I say that this is the greatest act
ever done, the 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 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 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.
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 am striking against the
government of the universe.
I am 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, say,
to pick a criminal who was 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 reborn 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 brothers and
sisters.
This is what Christianity teaches.
This is the witness the Church gives to
the world.
If she were giving the witness she is
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.
He alone could do it, so he did
it alone.
And I want that word alone, that little
word alone, the poet Keats says, alone, alone.
The word is like a bell.
And I want you to hear that bell
ring in your heart today, that 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 behooves us to fulfill all righteousness.
And John baptized him.
When it came that he must have a
garment, the women went together and made him
a garment without seam, and he wore that
garment, a gift of the women.
And 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.
And 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.
And 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, with the sun hidden and no
moon and star to shine, and with no
one looking on, he by himself purged 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, you will notice that
I do not say unkind things about the
Romanists.
I do not want to do it, I
do not feel anybody should say unkind things
about others, even though they are tragically and
terribly wrong.
But I cannot refrain from pointing out the
difference between the Protestant position and the Roman
position here.
It is a difference that between the two
positions there is a great gulf fixed.
Why does that separate Lazarus and the rich
man?
The Romanists 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 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 is a difference
between those two positions.
Not a trifle, not something simply to divide
unnecessarily, but it is basic and final.
Does Christ die every Sunday, or did Christ
die once for all that 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 have suffered, the lost concept of majesty.
You see, it has come about by a
slow decline in our appreciation of ourselves.
Remember the day 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 we 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 are 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 are 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 are 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, a moving purpose,
and man is simply parked way up from
where he used to be to where he
is going to be.
He was once moved about in colloidal ooze,
and oozed and crept and sloshed about in
the deeps of the sea.
Then the sun struck him and he took
on an eye and he became a mud
puppy.
Then the sun did some more, and after
the passing of a few more million years
he became a bird.
Then after that he became a monkey, and
he was on his way.
And here we are now, D.D. and
L.L.D. and all the rest, but
we are not where we are going and
we are not where we have been.
We are not the center of anything.
We are simply taken off.
We are in motion.
So at long about the turn of the
century or a little before, the world suddenly
drew its deep breath and said, Why, can
it possibly be that we are struggling upward
and that all this 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 is the residual remnants of that which
used to be in the man, and little
by little we are 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.
Do you see how far he has come?
Yes, he has come a long way.
See him two nights later when his wife
calls him out and he turns on her
and shoots her or stabs her or walks
out on her.
He is a human being too, and his
degree hasn't changed him in any degree.
He will allow that.
Then they said, Well, somewhere there is something
fixed.
If it isn't the earth, it is the
sun.
Einstein came along and said, You have got
that all wrong.
Nothing is fixed anywhere, not even the sun.
For the sun is simply another star, and
around it is gathered the solar system.
But that isn't fixed either, because it is
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 is 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 if you couldn't look on them with
respect, you'd see under their sight burns the
marks of the mudpuppet gills.
And you would realize they weren't dignified men
made in the image of God at all,
but that they'd craft up that far out
of the gutter.
This is what they wanted to believe, and
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.
They even photograph childbirth and put it in
Life magazine.
There isn't anything that's left in the world
that's sacred anymore.
Art, sometime 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 is no stair and no nude and
no descent.
One man said he thought it should have
been called Cyclone in a Shingle Factory.
It would have meant the same thing and
been just as intelligible.
Down in one of the cities in the
United States two years ago, a man by
the name of Nicholson 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?
That happened.
It's not a story, that happened.
Art, literature, and music.
Maybe I'm wrong about this, I don't 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.
I wonder if we have the quality of
men we used to have in government.
I doubt it.
A friend of mine in Chicago, incidentally, his
brother is a Christian, you probably know 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
he 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.
It amuses me to say, Now, Senator, tell
us, what do you think about this question?
Oh, no, 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, 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 a man, don't
forget it.
A gentleman has been writing to me from
some town.
He is a brother of Dr. Walter Wilson,
the brother of the famous preacher.
He is 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 is
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 is a man, he is God, but
he is a man.
Just as he was man and God down
here, he is 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.
And 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.
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 his 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 eel,
stretch its broad wings and soar so high
that nothing can pull it down.
As the eagle can look upon the sun,
we pray that we may look upon thy
holy sun 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.