Now I want to read from the Book
of John.
We're still in that first chapter.
I wonder if we'll ever get through the
Book of John.
I think I'm just going to have to
sigh and break off one of these nights
because there's so much here.
Beginning with verse 29, the next day, John,
that is John the Baptist this time, see
Jesus coming unto him and said, Behold the
Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin
of the world.
This is he of whom I said, After
me cometh a man which is preferred before
me, for he was before me.
And I knew him not, but that he
should be made manifest to Israel, therefore am
I come baptizing with water.
And John bare record, saying, I saw the
Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and
it abode upon him.
And I knew him not, but he that
sent me to baptize with water, the same
said unto me, Upon whom thou shalt see
the Spirit descending and remaining on him, the
same is he which baptizeth with the Holy
Ghost.
And I saw, and bare record, that this
is the Son of God.
Again the next day after, John stood and
two of his disciples, and looking upon Jesus
as he walked, he said, Behold the Lamb
of God.
And the two disciples heard him speak, and
they followed Jesus.
Now that's to the end of verse thirty
-seven.
And if I am to take any one
sentence, it is, Behold the Lamb of God,
that taketh away the sins of the world.
Now I confess that I am preaching to
you tonight truth already familiar.
Already you can anticipate my arguments.
You know about what I am going to
say.
I have said, and I have not meant
it in anything but a kindly way, that
the average preacher, if you will tell me
his text, I will write his sermon for
him and tell you what he said.
Never hear it.
The only thing I won't know is his
illustrations.
I don't know where he's been last, so
I don't know what story he's going to
tell.
But here we have truth so critical, so
vital, that we ought to hear it with
ears vibrant, alert, listening as one might
listen for the sound of a ship's bell
if you were lost at sea.
And yet I might as well tell you
that I don't think that I'm going to
have a hearing, one hundred percent anyway, of
people tonight who are going to listen with
that much attention.
The reason being that to a large degree
familiarity has brought boredom to the fundamental church
in the world.
We have heard the same thing repeated until
we are bored.
And I do not blame those who repeat
because it is necessary that we continue to
say the same things.
But what I complain about is that we
are unconscious of that presence of the one
who can take the familiar word and make
it brilliantly new.
We are dying by degrees in orthodox circles
because we are resting in the truth of
the word and are forgetting that there is
a spirit of the word without which the
truth of the word means nothing to the
human spirit at last.
It was Emerson who said once in one
of his essays, he let his imagination roam
a bit and he said, what would it
be like if the stars came out only
once in a thousand years?
He said if it could be known and
predicted by astronomers that on this particular night
the stars would come out, he said we
would throw down everything we were doing, nothing
would seem important, we would all get into
the open, and we would gaze with rapture
heavenward as that city of God came into
view.
But because we see the stars every night,
we scarcely gaze heavenward at all except to
try to predict the weather for the next
day.
Now if we could only hear the gospel
once, with what keenness we would approach the
hearing of the word.
But we have heard it, and we have
heard it until it has become familiar, and
because it is familiar, it has been dulled
and ceased to have the power over us
that it should have.
Now I want to warn you tonight, not
only for this little talk I am going
to give now, but for all the time
to come, look out for religious boredom.
Look out for that yawning ennui, is that
the word?
Near enough.
But that means that dull, sleepy, bored attitude
that can look in the face of wonders
and not see them, that can hear the
voice of mystery and not hear it at
all, and can take religion dully.
I hear certain services over the radio, not
from WMBI incidentally, but I hear certain services
over the radio, and they are very much
alike.
I am not going to identify them, though
I am sure you guess.
But I have deliberately exposed myself to them,
saying to myself, if I were a hungry
-hearted soul and I heard a man race
through words which I had heard a thousand
times before, in a tone duller than a
conductor on a railroad train, no meaning, no
warmth, no vibrancy, no life, no sympathy, no
emotion, but just going over those, doing his
homework, getting through, not interested at all, I
wonder how that would affect me if I
were just an average sinner off the street
and did not know God through Jesus Christ
our Lord.
I think that altogether, apart from the theology
of it, I would demand that the man
get concerned about something.
We used to have a man around this
church years ago, that is beyond the memory
of a great many of you, and he
was one of the most collected men I
have ever seen in my life.
That is, nothing would ever move him.
We used to have a kind of a
gruff old brother here who used to say,
I would be willing to burn the building
down on that man just to get him
to move in a hurry once.
Well, there is so much of that.
There is so much of the boredom of
religion.
And people turn from it, and they turn
from it, and then we piously say they
have rejected our doctrine.
No, they have not rejected our doctrine.
They have not heard our doctrine.
But even within the confines of those who
listen and listen with some degree of sympathy,
there is grave danger that we hear until
our ears refuse to register anymore.
Just as you can look at a bright
light until your optic nerves will no longer
function and your mind sees total darkness, so
you can hear truth until your auditory nerves
cease to function anymore, and you are not
hearing anything at all.
And I am convinced that a great many
Bible conferences are simply the shining of so
much light that the optic nerves of the
people have gone completely blind.
The sounding of so much truth that the
auditory nerves have died, and people are hearing
without hearing and seeing without seeing.
We must be very careful during these coming
days that we get our hearts tender and
into a state where the word of the
Lord means something to us.
I told a young man, he may be
here tonight, the young brother preacher, Baptist preacher
from Georgia who preached in this pulpit this
morning.
I said to him, now my own friend,
I'd like to say this to you as
you are getting late in your 30s and
approaching that time, that 40 period in your
life.
I'd like to say this to you.
Search your soul, do something for yourself, start
over, take a day off, get before God,
pray through, get something new on you so
that you won't be teeter out and become
one more old beat-up preacher that can
talk about holy things as shop talk, that
can talk about the name of Jesus Christ
without any break in the voice, that can
talk about heaven without any excitement, that can
talk about God without any reverence.
He took it as I meant it, for
I did not mean him particularly, I was
talking out of my own experience and suggest,
my friends, that we have a time of
getting before God and asking him to break
up the sods of our heart, the green
sword, break it up, plow it up until
we no longer sense that coldness and deadness.
Now, all this I've said preliminary to trying
to bring a little word on the Lamb
of God that taketh away the sins of
the world.
At the approaching end of John's ministry, in
this text this evening, and John is about
to fade out, one of the most beautiful
things I know of in the scriptures is
how the mighty John, with all Palestine listening
to him, arrived at a moment in his
life when he said, now my work is
finished and the one that I came before
has arrived, and I decrease and he increases,
I fade out and now he shines in
his splendor.
And John was about to pass out of
the picture and shine no more, and he
had told the many things about the coming
one John had.
He hadn't seen the coming one.
It is a mistake to believe that John
and Jesus were acquainted with each other, though
they were distant relatives.
Or if they were acquainted with each other,
John had no remote conception that Jesus was
to be the one he was preaching about.
But John had told the many things about
the coming one, and now he crowns all
that he has to say by saying, Behold
the Lamb of God that taketh away the
sins of the world.
Now what that meant to a Jew?
You would have to be a Jew and
have a background of understanding in Jews' religion
to be able to have this hit your
heart with the brilliant sunburst that came to
them when he said, Behold the Lamb of
God.
While they knew the story of Abel, the
young man who had taken the lamb and
brought it, dripping blood to the altar of
God, and the fire of God had fallen
and God witnessed to Abel that he was
accepted, they knew that story.
They knew the story of Abraham making his
sacrifice.
They knew the story down the years, and
they were perfectly familiar with that wonderful Passover
lamb that was slain for the salvation of
a race, and they were familiar with that
long line of priests that had offered lambs
year after year down to that time.
And when he said, Behold the Lamb of
God, it was like saying, Now we are
at the bottom of the column.
We will now add it up.
All the lambs that ever have been, from
Abel's first lamb down to this hour, have
all received their fulfillment now in the Lamb
of God, the Lamb of Abel, and the
Lamb of Abraham, and the Lamb of Isaac,
and the Lamb of Judah, and the Passover
lamb, and all these lambs were in the
Lamb men had presented.
But now comes the Lamb that nobody else
ever could present.
He is God Almighty's Lamb.
The summation and finish of all the lambs
that ever were or are to be, this
is the full plenary summation of all of
the dying lambs meant through the centuries.
And that must have come to the ears
of the Jews with a wonderful ringing meaning,
Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away
the sins of the world.
Now he said here, I told you a
while ago, this is the one about whom
I was speaking.
He said, I've been telling you over the
last weeks that there cometh one after me
who is preferred before me because he was
before me.
Now there's a little antithetical trick of language
we've got to break down.
There cometh one after me in time who
is preferred before me in honor because he
was before me in rank.
There cometh one after me, that is I
came first, and I came as the herald
proclaiming the one who was to come after
me.
But the one who came after me in
time is preferred before me in honor because
he is before me in rank, in that
he is the very Son of God himself.
But now how was this one to be
identified?
Many people were getting baptized, great multitudes of
people were being baptized, and how was this
coming one to be identified?
John didn't know him.
So he had to meet the most rigid
test, this one, and this being Christmas season,
though we're just a little over it, I
might say that anybody to prove himself to
be the Messiah had to meet certain rigid
tests.
He had to be born at the seat
of Abraham, and nobody could claim to be
the Son of God or claim to be
the Savior of mankind, Israel's Messiah, and not
be at the seat of Abraham.
He had to be able to trace his
lineage back down to Abraham.
That had to be.
Otherwise, if they couldn't prove he wasn't the
Christ, he couldn't prove he was.
Then they narrowed the downstill further.
He had to be born of the seed
of Isaac and Jacob.
And Jacob had twelve sons, and it had
to come on down and come of one
man, David.
And not only must he be born of
the lineage of Abraham through David the king,
but he also must be born at approximate
time.
There was a time there he had to
be born.
If he'd been born three hundred years before,
as Buddha was, it wouldn't have done.
Six hundred years after, as Muhammad was, it
wouldn't have been sufficient, because he'd have missed
the time element there.
If he'd have been born an Arab, or
if he had been born a Japanese, it
wouldn't have done, because he'd have missed the
lineage element.
And then he must be born in a
certain country.
And it wasn't an important country, as the
world saw it, a little tucked up country
there, sort of pushed in between the continents.
But if he'd been born anywhere else, he
could have been born in Rome, or in
Egypt, or in India, but that wouldn't have
done.
He had to be born in that little
country there, and then not only did he
have to be born in that particular country,
but it had to be pinpointed to an
actual city.
And what a city it was, anyway, a
tank town, if you please.
It was a little tiny town that did
not have more than one inn.
The scriptures are very specific, and they say
that there was no room for him in
the inn.
You don't go to New York or Chicago,
or even Fort Wayne or Elkhart, and say
there was no room for him in the
hotel.
You say, I couldn't get a room in
any hotel.
But in little Bethlehem of Judah, it was
said there was no room for him in
the inn.
There was only one inn, and they rarely
used that, I take it.
But it so happened that they needed to
use it that time because of a decree
that had gone out from Caesar Augustus.
So he had to be born in that
little town.
If you and I had been doing it,
we'd have had him born in Rome, because
Rome was the eternal city.
We'd have had him born in Athens, certainly,
because that was the city of brains.
We'd have picked a city somewhere that was
big and important and pushed itself and trooted
itself out into the human consciousness.
And God works silently and quietly and modestly.
When God's turning a world over, he does
it so quietly that no one notices.
So he had his Messiah to be born
in little Bethlehem of Judah, though thou be
little among the thousands of Judah.
Little?
Judah's cities, none of them was large.
Only Jerusalem was a large city.
And though thou be little, even little among
the thousands, yet you're great, because out of
you will come this one.
Now, John had to know all that, but
that still wasn't enough, because there were men
who were born at the seed of Abraham,
and they were living at that time.
There were men who were the descendant of
the line of David, and they were living
at that time.
I don't know that there were any that
were born in Bethlehem, but there might have
been.
So in order to pinpoint it down, drive
the nail in and clench it and settle
it forever, God said, John, now you watch.
You watch and there will be a man,
and you will baptize him.
And everything will go just the same as
it did before.
You will baptize him.
And there will be water, and there will
be people, and there will be the low
murmured words of the man you're baptizing.
And everything will be exactly the same as
every other man you baptize, but there's going
to be one brilliant distinction, this one you're
waiting for and don't know.
When he appears, there will be a white
dove descending, and the light upon him, and
you'll see, and that will be the sign
between you and me.
So when Jesus presented himself at the bank
of the Jordan, there was something different about
the man, but not enough different.
John looked at him and felt a bit
inferior and said, I don't know, I don't
feel right about baptizing you, whoever you are.
I think you ought to baptize me.
He still didn't know who it was.
And our Lord said, fulfill all righteousness, it
becomes as so.
And then he baptized him, and when he
baptized him, the Holy Ghost descended, and he
said, I knew him not, but he that
sent me said, the one upon whom the
dove descends, the Holy Ghost like a dove,
he is the Messiah, the one that you've
gone to proclaim.
And I saw and bear witness that this
is the Son of God.
So he met all those rigid tests.
I talked not too long ago with a
fellow, well, he's an evangelical, he's very much
influenced by the liberals, and he said, I
believe there is a messianic thread runs through
the Old Testament, all right.
And I believe that there is a messianic
hope in the Old Testament, but I do
not believe that the Old Testament ever prophesied
about Jesus Christ.
He said, the Christians have read back into
the Old Testament what they know about Jesus,
and they've made it say what they wanted
to say so that it'll add up to
Jesus Christ our Lord.
And brethren, I'd like to say tonight, and
I want always, if I can, to preach
as if I wasn't going to preach anymore,
although I hope to live a hundred years
yet and keep preaching every week.
But I'd like to say this to you,
brethren, that talk like that makes me spiritually
indignant.
Now, maybe I'm just carnally mad, I hope
that isn't it.
But it makes me spiritually indignant to have
some fellow with a restrained, smooth, cautious voice
say, I believe the Bible has a messianic
hope, all right, the Old Testament, but the
Old Testament never prophesied concerning Jesus of Nazareth.
I'd like to say, gentlemen and ladies, that
we don't ask any concession from the liberals.
I want you to see me standing up
here, height five foot ten, weight 152, age
56.
Now, there I am.
Now, I want to hear you me say
something, and it's this.
I don't ask any patronizing concessions from the
liberals.
They don't owe me anything, and I believe
and am perfectly willing that my faith in
God and Christ and all my hope for
the world to come and all of Christendom
should rest down upon the simple fact that
the Jesus of the New Testament is the
Messiah of the Old.
The Jesus of the New Testament is the
Messiah of the Old, and all of that
patronizing business.
I don't want to be patronized, and I
don't want to be, as they say, cruelly
say, I understand you.
I understand you.
You'd think that I was a black dung
beetle and that a scientist was turning me
over on my back and watching me snap
and studying me and say, I understand you.
I don't want them understanding me.
They owe me nothing, and I make no
concessions that Jesus of the New Testament is
the Messiah of the Old, and they can't
fool me by saying those were just general
prophecies, and they didn't mean anything in particular.
They didn't mean any body.
They were just general prophecies.
If I believed that, I'd slap my Bible
shut and give it one goodbye pat, and
I'd never insult a congregation again by preaching
to them.
But the Jesus of the New Testament is
the Messiah prophesied in the Old, and so
we're not going to allow anybody to frighten
us out of that.
Behold the Lamb of God.
We can prove our position by the scriptures,
and if any man will admit the authority
of the word of God, then we can
show how the Jesus of the New Testament
came according to the Old Testament scriptures and
walked in all the ways pointed out for
him thousands of years before he was born.
Appeared at a certain time in a certain
place with the precision of the finest train,
and moved with the fine precision of the
most expensive watch, and everything happened as it
was prophesied by God Almighty in the Old
Testament.
I don't know why that's so hard to
believe.
Why should it seem a thing incredible that
God Almighty should be able to foretell the
future?
God who has lived all our tomorrows, God
who knows no yesterday and no tomorrow, but
swallows up yesterday, tomorrow, and one everlasting now,
why wouldn't it be easy for God to
know what will take place in our tomorrow
when he's already lived it, and looked back
upon all our tomorrows as something already accomplished?
And I could ask a few questions of
those who patronize the scriptures and say, you
know, the Bible is a general book.
It isn't specific.
My brother, the Bible is just as specific
as a doctor.
A man goes to a doctor, the doctor
doesn't reach under the table and pull out
a general book of symptoms and say, I'm
not going to prescribe specifically now.
That's fanatical.
I'm just going to give you a general
prescription.
You take it, doc.
I won't take it, will you?
No, sir.
I won't take any stuff that is prescribed
just generally.
I want to know this means me, and
not somebody else.
Why, a pill that would cure somebody else
would kill me better than a mackerel.
Because when you come to anything as fine
as that, as prescribing for the human body,
you've got to be specific, and God Almighty
specific in it all.
But they say it's because we're dumb.
And I have talked to some of these
boys that are supposed to be so well
educated, and they're all ignorant of the scriptures.
I don't know a liberal that knows the
Bible, and I don't know a liberal that
has any happy experience of God, not one.
They talk about wordsworth, and they talk about
care to guard, and they get poetical and
dreamy and stretch their arms out to embrace
all men as brothers.
But not a one of them can ever
say, I have seen him, I have known
him, and he walks along with me.
Not one of them.
No, I don't play old-time liberal, brother.
Not at this stage.
I'm satisfied with the book.
Satisfied with the holy book that prophesied the
coming of that holy thing which was to
be born of Mary.
And when John saw him, he had all
the proof he needed.
He said, Behold the Lamb of God.
Now, I ask you where we shall look
in this day.
We're coming up to the end of an
old year and about to enter into a
new one, and where shall we look?
Were you sweeter than me, or did you
sort of smile in a cynical way when
you heard everybody suddenly get so religious along
about the 23rd?
All the sponsors were wishing us peace, and
all the comedians were wishing us peace, and
the commentators were wishing us peace, and everybody
that could get our ear was saying a
nice patronizing thing about the Prince of Peace
and wishing that we might have peace.
And then I also learned that Eisenhower has
made a speech, I didn't hear it, but
they say he made a speech in which
he said he hoped for peace, and Churchill
said that peace was nearer now than it
was before.
And they say that even old, tough, cynical,
iron-handed Moscow broke down under the sound
of the bells floating across the Iron Curtain
and wished the world peace.
Now, I want to ask you, friends, is
that the best we've got to look to
as we enter the unknown tomorrow?
Are we going to have to lean on
Churchill, who's getting old and about to die,
and Eisenhower, who doesn't know much except military
things and golf, and Moscow that never told
the truth except, well, now I hurt?
Are we going to look to the man
who tells us over the radio to relax?
One man's written some book telling us to
relax.
The fellow sent me a copy of it,
and I read it.
I read it.
I don't read everything I get, but I
read this.
He said, relax.
He said, go to bed at night and
relax.
And he said, do you want to know
how to relax?
He said, think of all the lovely things
you've ever seen.
He said, think of roses.
And he said, if that doesn't relax, why
think about, he says, think about a symphony
orchestra, he said.
Just imagine me lying there in bed hoping
for what I could drum up out of
my empty head of my memory of roses
and symphony orchestras.
And then that fellow's a liberal, mind you,
shrugs and says, well, the Bible's general, but
it's not particular.
Well, he certainly is not particular.
He wouldn't write like that.
But anyhow, is that the best we've got
to look to in this hour in which
we're living, brethren?
I was simply going to go sludging along,
hoping for the best, like the man who
was falling out of a 20-story building.
And as he passed the 10th story on
the way down, somebody shouted, how are you
doing?
He said, all right so far.
Are we going to kid ourselves as we
fall downward, or are we going to get
our feet down on something?
I got to have my big feet on
something.
And I'm not going to listen to any
of these siren-voiced fellows who tell me
to relax and remember symphony orchestras.
I want to know there's something that's real,
that I can put my feet down on
and know that though I tremble, it'll never
tremble.
Well, there's one disease that's matter with the
world.
The trouble with the world is not hard
to diagnose, not hard to find out.
There is one thing that's wrong with the
world, and it was in the mouth of
John.
Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away
the what?
Sins of the world.
And there's only one thing that's wrong with
the world, just one thing that's wrong with
the world, and that was in John's famous
phrase.
And there is only one cure, and that
also was in the mouth of John.
The Lamb of God that taketh away the
sins of the world.
And there is only one hope for the
burdened heart of the world, only one.
And finally, there is only one hope for
the salvation of the world.
Now, I ask you, what is to prevent
the human race from destroying itself?
Those words are in the mouths of men
and thoughts are in the hearts of men,
and they're wondering about the human race destroying
itself.
I ask you, what is to prevent some
insane dictator from bringing the world down around
him?
It couldn't be.
Men are thinking such thoughts.
What is to prevent it?
I understand the A-bomb has given way
to the H-bomb, and there's another bomb,
the name of which for the moment I've
forgotten, which is more terribly deadly yet than
the H-bomb, the Kubalt bomb.
It's still more terrible than that still more
terrible H-bomb.
What's to prevent some mad dictator who doesn't
care, saying, I'll rule the world or ruin
it, and either rule it or bring it
down into ruin around his own suicidal head?
What is to prevent some huge accident from
taking place, setting up some vast, unstoppable chain
reaction that will burn the world up?
Maybe, but I mean it could be.
But I'll tell you what's to prevent it,
brethren.
God Almighty hasn't given the world up.
Philosophers may have, but God hasn't.
God isn't finished.
Behold, the Lamb of God that taketh away
the sins of the world, he said.
And God isn't finished with the world.
Why am I optimistic as I gaze into
the future?
Even if Russia should conquer the world, I'd
still be optimistic, as long as they let
me live.
And I'd go to heaven optimistic when they
made me die, because I don't believe God's
given up his world.
I believe the human race was created in
the image of God, and though we fell
into shameful disgrace and moral tragedy, God Almighty
sent someone to restore us again to that
holy place from which we fell.
And I believe in the ultimate restoration of
the world.
Now, let me explain what I mean.
I believe that the control of the world
is going to pass from that unregenerate part
of the world into the hands of the
regenerate part of the world, for there are
now two human races.
There was once one human race, and that
human race fell and plunged down into the
mire of sin and iniquity and brought upon
ourselves disease and insanity and death.
And then God began the redemption of the
human race within the race, so that there
were now two running parallel to each other,
the unregenerate race that goes back to the
loins of Adam and the regenerate race that
goes back to the heart of Jesus, the
firstborn man and the secondborn man, the once
-born man and the twice-born man, the
Son of Adam and the Son of God.
They're mingled together in the world now, and
for the time being, the race is in
the hands of the unregenerate world.
Unregenerate statesmen, presidents, prime ministers, leaders, kings, and
generals run the world.
And if there isn't help from some other
direction, these unregenerate worldlings are going to bring
our world down in ruin by some cobalt
bomb or some other hellish thing dreamed up
from the pit.
But there's another race, a royal priesthood, a
holy nation, a peculiar people.
As God took Eve out of the side
of Adam and to Berib and formed thereof
a woman, so out of the wounded heart
of Jesus, God is forming a new race.
And that new race is going to be
the ultimate human race.
And the fallen, lost race is going to
be sent out from God into the far
place like the scapegoat to bear their sins
into the ultimate hell that God's prepared for
the devil and his angels.
But the new human race, which I trust
you are a part by the new birth,
will finally take over the world.
Was this only a poetic dream when Jesus
said, Blessed are the meek, for they shall
inherit the earth?
Was that only one more religious cliché, one
more bromide, to give a little bit of
false hope to the world?
No.
Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit
the earth.
And some wit thought that he would get
himself up a little joke, so he said,
Yes.
Blessed are the meek, they shall inherit the
earth after the proud are thrown out of
it.
Period.
And he thought, isn't that a quip now?
That'll go over the air.
That'll make them laugh.
But he was telling more truth than he
knew, brethren.
The meek shall inherit the earth when the
proud are thrown out of it.
They'll be through with it, all right, when
they're thrown out of it.
And all that rested down on guns and
bombs, all that rested down on cheap politics,
all that rested down on human science, and
all that rested down on human society, will
be swept away.
And God will plant a new race in
the earth with Jesus Christ the King.
Oh, I don't know we'll stay on the
earth, because we're going to be more than
earth dwellers in that day.
For we will have a body like unto
his glorified body.
I personally think the earth is going to
be too small for us in that day.
May have our headquarters here, but we'll certainly
go soaring around among the galaxies, the stars
yonder, and go and hop from one place
to the other.
And all this interspace stuff that they're talking
about and dreaming over will all come to
pass.
When the new race, without the limitations of
time or space, and without the limitations of
sick bodies, without the fear of the devil,
when God Almighty fumigates his heavens above, and
all the devils drop dead out of it,
and God sweeps it all up into hell,
his universe will be clean and bright and
sweet as a meadow after a spring rain.
And then I don't know what we'll do,
this new race that's in Christ Jesus the
Lord.
Now, if you're a sinner, you belong to
the old race.
If you're a really born Christian, you belong
to the new race, and there are just
two kinds of people in the world, those
whose essential life stems from the loins of
Adam, and those whose essential life stems from
the heart of Jesus.
So the Church of God on earth is
simply a sample of the new race, that's
all.
Now, if we're samples of the new race,
I could preach another sermon on this one.
As Melvin said, another sun risen on noonday.
But I could preach to you again the
fact that if we're a redeemed people and
we're samples of the new race, then we
ought to live like the new race, and
think like the new race, and be like
the new race of people.
Behold the Lamb of God taketh away the
sin, not only of the individual, but ultimately
the sin of society, and will purge this
world and make it clean, and will rule.
But lastly, and best of all for you
and me this moment, best of all is
that he taketh away sins.
Best of all.
And it's marvelous how he does it, if
we come to him with our sins.
Just come to him as we are, he
does it.
When we lived in the state of West
Virginia, there was a woman, a middle-aged
woman, and I don't think I have ever
known anybody like her before or since.
She was so gloomy that she'd sour milk
almost.
She was the need plus other and essential
nadir of all things pessimistic and gloomy and
blue.
The world had come to an end for
her, and she used to come down and
visit, and we'd pray with her.
Seeing her coming down the aisle, brother, was
an experience.
Talk about two works of grace you had
to have at least two to withstand that
gal when she came down the aisle.
Well, I can't describe her other than to
say she was misery personified.
But she would pray, and thank God she
was praying.
And then one day, one morning early, the
door burst open, and she burst through.
Only, instead of crape hanging on the moon,
it was now the sun had risen, and
she burst in there.
I've forgotten her name.
I'll have to tell you her name.
But she burst in there full of sunshine
and delight and joy, and she said, He's
done it!
He's done it!
The Lord has done it!
He's done it!
And she was almost hysterical with laughter and
delight and joy.
Well, I knew her for a long time
after that, and she never lost it.
The Lamb of God that taketh away the
sins of the world had suddenly found that
poor, sin-cursed heart of hers, and set
the balance to her.
Over at Beulah Beach two years ago, less
than two years ago, a young woman asked
to see me.
She came with another friend.
We sat and talked on the porch.
She had committed the unpardonable sin.
And she said she had committed the unpardonable
sin.
That was all there was to it.
And I tried to encourage her, but she
wouldn't be encouraged.
She would be a little, but she'd say,
Thank you, thank you so much.
And then twenty minutes later, she was back
in the dumps again.
But that wasn't all.
When I left the beach, she called me
long-distance.
I was over in New Jersey, and staying
in a war meeting there, and the thing
rang, and they said, You ought to go
long-distance.
I went long-distance.
Here was a woman, this woman.
She said, It's on me again, Mr. Toter.
I've done it.
I've committed the unpardonable sin.
And I tried to tell her she hadn't,
or she wouldn't be calling me long-distance
about it.
If she had, she wouldn't care.
But you can't talk to people like that.
But I promised to pray, and I think
I did spasmodically and sporadically and feebly, but
I got a Christmas card.
And she turned the thing over and written
a letter on it.
She said, Oh, I want to tell you,
it's happened.
She said, God has met me, and I'd
have written you before, only I was ashamed
to.
She said, I was ashamed of the way
I'd deviled you and bothered you and chased
you around trying to get help.
But it's come!
Why, her very Christmas card danced and trembled
with the joy that had come to her
heart.
He still takes away the sins of the
world, ladies and gentlemen.
He still does.
Our friend Camel here, lived with an old
gentleman down here, and he used to stagger
into their kitchen, happy drunk, every so often,
stand there and rock around on his hunkers
while they talked to him about the Lord
Jesus.
I'd have given him up long ago, I'm
sure I would, but patiently they went on,
and one day God met his soul.
One day the mighty power of God came
through and broke the power of a long
habit in his life.
I don't have to go on.
You have samples, you know, examples.
He taketh away the sins of the world,
and he still does it.
And it isn't general, it's he pinpoints it.
It isn't general, he pinpoints it.
Suppose you've got a tax reduction.
You've got word from Washington.
We're going to reduce taxes twenty percent in
1954, but it's not specific.
It's just general.
It doesn't mean anybody in particular.
I think I'd wire Washington and say, how
come, at least.
And suppose that a lawyer called you in
and said so-and-so died and left
a million dollars.
But it's just general, it's not for anybody.
And they want us to believe that that
represents superior thinking and scholarship.
And thousands of simple-hearted people at once
were bound by liquor can say today, the
Lamb of God has broken every fetter and
I'm not bound anymore.
When women who used to be so mean,
nobody could live with them, are now sweet
and patient and understanding and gracious.
Men who once cursed and swore and blasphemed
now walk along the street memorizing scripture as
they go on their way to church and
prayer meeting.
The Lamb of God taketh away the sins
of the world.
You don't have to carry a sin out
of here, not one.
You don't have to take one sin out
of here.
The Lamb of God, the seed of Abraham,
David's greater son, the Lamb that was slain,
he specializes in hard cases.
And he takes away sin, yours and mine.
He'll take away yours and mine.
He forgiveth iniquity.
He pardoneth sin.
You confess it, he forgives it.
You name it, he destroys it.
You expose it, he removes it.
You own it, he takes it out.
You don't have to have a priest or
a preacher or a baptismal font or a
river or a course in theology.
You just have to believe what I'm telling
you now.
Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away
the sins of the world.
That's where to look this year.
That's where to look tonight, to the Lamb
of God.
Jesus, the Lamb of God.