(John - Part 10): Behold the Lamb of God — A.W. Tozer

The Lamb of God in John's Gospel

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, seeeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, 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 saith, Behold the Lamb of God. And the two disciples heard him speak, and they followed Jesus.

Now that's to the end of verse 37. 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 he will tell me his text, I will write his sermon for him and tell you what he said and 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.

Religious Boredom and the Need for Attentive Hearing

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've heard it and we've 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'm 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? I don't think that's 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're very much alike.

I'm not going to identify them, though I'm sure you will guess. But I have deliberately exposed myself to them, saying to myself, now 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 in the street and didn't 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's 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'd be willing to burn the building down on that man just to get him to move in a hurry once. Well, there's so much of that.

There's so much of the boredom of religion. And people turn from it, and they turn from it, and then we piously say they've rejected our doctrine. No, they've not rejected our doctrine. They haven't 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're not hearing anything at all.

And I'm 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 who may be here tonight, the young brother preacher, Baptist preacher from Georgia who preached in this pulpit this morning.

Renewal and Spiritual Self-Examination for Preachers

I said to him, now my own friend, I'd like to say this to you as you are getting late in your thirties and approaching that time, that fourteen 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 teetered 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 sobs of our heart, the green sore. Break it up. Plow it up until we no longer sense that coldness and deadness.

John the Baptist Announces the Lamb of God

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 the 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 them 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, although 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 them 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 Jew's 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 fulplenary 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 have 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 is 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.

Messianic Prophecy and the Identification of Christ

I might say that anybody to prove himself to be the Messiah had to meet certain rigid tests. He had to be born of the seed of Abraham. Nobody could claim to be the Son of God or claim to be the Savior of mankind, Israel's Messiah, and not be the seed 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. 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 had 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. 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. But 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, a 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 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 a soul. 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 that 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 want it to say so that it will add up to Jesus Christ our Lord.

Jesus Christ as the Messiah Prophesied in the Old Testament

Now, 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.

This makes me, 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, No, 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.

That Jesus of the New Testament is the Messiah of the Old. 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. And 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.

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 look back upon all our tomorrows for 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 man. 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-eyed and stretch their arms out to embrace all men as brothers. But not 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 believe I'll turn 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. And 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.

The Lamb of God as the World's Only Hope

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. 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 when a lie 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. A 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, if 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 got to look to in this hour in which we're living, brethren? Are we simply going to go sludging along, hoping for the best like the man who was falling out of a twenty-story building?

And as he passed the tenth story on the way down, somebody shouted, how are you doing? And 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've got to have my big feet on something. I want to know what this is about. 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 a matter with the world. The trouble with the world is not hard to diagnose. It's 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 thee, what? Sins of the world. There is 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 is another bomb, the name of which, for the moment, I have forgotten, which is more terribly deadly yet than the H-bomb.

Cobalt bomb. Still more terrible than that, still more terrible H-bomb. What is 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? It may be, 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.

The New Race, Regeneration, and the Future Kingdom

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 onceborn man and the twiceborn man. The son of Adam and the son of God. They are 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 is another race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people. Out of, as God took Eve out of the side of Adam and took her rib 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 set 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, 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'll have a body like unto his glorified body.

But I personally think the earth is going to be too small for us in that day. It 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, then I could preach another sermon on this one.

As Milton 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.

Christ Takes Away Individual Sin

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 I lived in, 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 and ever 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, it 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.