Let's open the scriptures to
the Gospel of John, Chapter 1. It's good to see each of you
this evening. May the Lord bless as we meet
together. I've got a couple of verses that
I'd like to focus our attention on this evening. The first verse
is John chapter 1, verse 29. And this is a verse that is dear to us. The next day,
John seeth Jesus, the Lord Jesus. He sees Him coming unto him,
and he saith, Behold, God's Lamb. You notice he identifies Him
as the Lamb. There isn't another. He's the
Lamb of God. And then he says, which taketh
away the sin of the world. And then the second verse is
verse 36. And looking upon Jesus as he
walked, he said, Behold the Lamb of God. Now here's the message
for the night. One gospel message. Just one
gospel message. As we look at the 29th verse,
we see an excellent example of gospel preaching. And based on the information
in the passage, after John had preached this message on, look
at the Lamb of God, behold the Lamb of God, pay attention to
the Lamb of God, focus on the Lamb of God. After he set forth
this message, there is no indication that anybody believed his message.
As you read the context, there is nothing that would indicate
that there were those in the group who obeyed his word and
did in fact behold God's Lamb. No one seemed to cease from their
works. No one seemed to stop their efforts
in order to get into God's good standing. No one looked to God's
Lamb as the only Savior. There was nobody, there's nothing
in the context, there's nothing in the Scripture here that would
indicate in any way that anybody believed Him. And He got no encouragement
from anyone who would say amen to what He said. There is not
the least indication that anybody said in their hearts, oh yes,
this is the Savior for me. And I will behold Him. I will
look to this Jesus of Nazareth and I will believe Him as the
Lamb of God. There is no indication of that
whatsoever. And so there are no results,
that is no good results, that would give to the heart of John
any encouragement. And in the eyes of the world,
this message that John the Baptist delivered, was an unsuccessful
message. In fact, in so far as decisions
were concerned, or somebody saying yes to Jesus, as the world thinks
about those things today, you'd have to say that John's message
was a failure. That is, as modern religion looks
at it. Because nobody in the group said,
yes, John, we will behold Him. Yes, John, we will look to Him. Yes, John, we will believe Him. Yes, John, we will cease seeking
to be saved by our obedience to the law. And we will do just
exactly what you have commanded us to do. We will obey the gospel
command to behold the Lamb of God. There were no conversions. That's the point. Now since his message that day
evidently fell on deaf ears, I wonder what John is going to
do. Since those who listened to him
were disobedient to the gospel command to behold the Lamb of
God, what did this forerunner of the Messiah set out to do? And I would ask him, did he just
quit preaching? Did he resign from the ministry? Was he so distressed And was
he so disappointed that he decided that he would just give it up? Or did John the Baptist, after
he brings this message, did he thereby conclude that I need
a different approach? This isn't working. Here I preach from my very heart,
behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world. And
he did deliver this message, I'm sure, from his innermost
being. But, as we would look at the
results of it, and nobody seemed to believe what he's saying,
do you think John therefore said in his mind, well, I need to
do something different? I need to do something different.
After all, this doesn't produce a good result. So I'll change
my subject. I'll deliver a message that's
more, shall we say, palatable to the human liking. I'll give
to them a message that will tickle their ears. I'll say something
to them that will catch their attention, something that they'll
like. Did he decide to use a new approach? If he had been ministering today,
I'm sure that if ministers today, most of them, if they had been
in John's position, they would have said, well, you know, we
need to do something a different way here. Let's use a dramatic
approach. And we'll have a drama. Well,
up in Michigan, there's a church, actually a goat pasture, but
you know, they call it a church, but they have dramas. And every Sunday, people go,
and you never know, so they tell me what the preacher's going
to do, but it's always something dramatic. It's not preaching.
It is more like entertainment. It's more like actors on stage. And, I'm not very surprised about
this, lots of people go. Lots of people attend to that. Because this certainly appeals
to the flesh. Choose a different approach.
Maybe we'll bring a magician in. Or, this always works, let's
have a gospel singing. You really get a lot of people
in for that sort of thing. But, of course, all that's a
bunch of nonsense. Here's John the Baptist, he doesn't
make any changes. This first day he's preaching,
Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world. He's
God's Lamb. So John identifies him as to
who he is, and then John says this is why he came into the
world. He came into the world to take away the sins of people
throughout the world. Not everybody in the world, obviously,
but a world full of people. People from every nation, kindred,
tribe, and tongue. This is John's message on the
first day. And the next day he goes right
back to the same message. And there would be those today
who instruct preachers in how to preach that say to John, listen,
it didn't work yesterday, why do you think it's going to work
today? I mean, you've all heard this adage, if you keep doing
things the same way, don't be surprised if you keep getting
the same results, right? And that's the way it is in many
things. But in the gospel ministry, if
we're preaching the one gospel of the Lord Jesus, if we're setting
forth the Lamb of God, if we're identifying Him, and if we're
setting forth not only who He is, but what He came to do, That
is to remove sin by the sacrifice of Himself. We've got the right
message, we just need to keep on preaching it. And just because you don't believe
it, that doesn't mean the declaration of the message is a failure. And even if nobody that we declare
the message to believes it, we still keep on preaching. Here's
John the Baptist. He is not disappointed, he is
not discouraged by the fact that nobody seems to be moved by the
message. And so he goes out the second
day or the next day and he just keeps on preaching what he preached
before. There's nothing different. It's
not a different subject. It's not a new subject. It's
not something novel. He's not trying to entertain
anybody. This is not a dramatic presentation. There's no magician. There's
no gospel singing. It's just more about behold the
Lamb of God. He just keeps up the same thing. Behold, look, see, observe, inspect,
examine the Lamb of God. All of those things are involved
in that word, behold, the Lamb of God. You see, God's servants never
adjust their message. God's servants never alter their
message for any reason or for anybody. God's servants set forth God's
Word as it is. And they set it forth to men
and women as they are. Whether men listen or whether
men refuse to hear, We're not going to change the message to
suit them. I do hope you believe the message.
The message of grace. The message of Christ Jesus.
The message of substitution. The message of satisfaction.
The message of Jesus Christ alone. Jesus Christ and Him crucified
as I'm going to read from 1 Corinthians chapter 1 in just a few moments.
I do hope and pray, I ask God, I plead with God to enable you
and all who hear, all who are watching right now on the internet,
all who are listening to this later on, on a CD or watching
a DVD, I ask God, oh God, please enable men, gift men so that
they will believe the message. But if you don't, we're not going
to change the message. We're not going to alter the
subject in order to suit you. We're not going to water it down.
We're going to set it forth just like it's set forth in the Scriptures. Behold, God's Lamb, the Lamb
of God that came into this world to take away the sin of all of
His people. And He did that by the sacrifice
of Himself. That's the message today. That'll
be the message tomorrow. That'll be the message this coming
Lord's Day. It's the message God's servants
preach every time they get up behind the pulpit. And it's the
message that God's people want to hear. Just give me the same
story, preacher. Just tell me about the same Lamb
of God and tell me what He did again. He came and He took my
sins away. And the people of God will say,
bless the name of Jesus Christ. You see, no message glorifies
God like this message. And no message so encourages
sinners to come to Christ Jesus. When we're convinced by the Spirit
of God of what we are, of our sinfulness, then we'll long to
hear again of this One whose purpose for coming into the world
was to solve this great dilemma of how God can be just and justify
the ungodly and remove our sins from us as far as the East is
from the West. And that will encourage us. That
will bless us. That will strengthen us. And
there's no more important message to motivate the people of God
to right living, to motivate the people of God to do what
they do for the glory of God, than this very message. John
said, Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the
world. You see, there's just one gospel
message. You remember in the book of Galatians
chapter 1, here's what the apostles said, as we said before, so say
I now again, if any man preach any other gospel unto you than
that ye have received, let him be accursed. For do I now persuade
men of God? Or do I seek to please men? For if yet I pleased men, I should
not be the servant of Christ. My goal this evening is not to
satisfy your appetite. My goal this evening is not to
make you feel better about yourself. My goal this evening is to set
forth before you, honestly and from my heart, The Word of God. The Gospel of God's free grace. It's the only message that will
do you any good. It's the only message that will
glorify God. Just one message. One message. And we don't water
it down. See, the Gospel, it has a sharp
edge. And we're not going to blunt
the edge. We're not going to dull the edge. We're not going
to take anything off of it. I'm telling you, God is a sovereign
God. In old eternity He chose a people
unto salvation. He gave those people to the Lord
Jesus Christ who redeemed them and them alone. He didn't try
to save everybody, but He did save somebody. He saved His people
from their sins by His death on the cross and the Spirit of
God convinces those elect, redeemed ones of their sinfulness and
brings them to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ sometime during
their lifetime. Where the Bible says grace, we
say grace. We don't hold back. We are not
going to give the will of man or the way of man or the worth
of man any credit at all. The fact of the matter is we
are dead in trespasses and sins. The only one who can do us any
good is God Himself. And the only way God could help
us is through His dear Son, the Lamb of God, taking our place,
dying our death, dying in our stead to put our sins away. One gospel. One gospel. This is how we serve the souls
of man. What shall I do for you tonight?
Here you are. You came together. Here we are
assembled. Some of you got in from work,
got something to eat, rushed to the place of worship. Others
are watching on the internet and you get things set up and
so forth. What shall I tell you? What shall
I set before you? Well, just this. Behold the Lamb
of God that taketh away the sin of the world. You see, it's by
the preaching of Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, who was slain
for sinners. It's by this preaching that sinners
are converted. It's by gospel preaching that
God calls out His elect. It's by the preaching of the
cross that eternally bound men and women are snatched from the
clutches of Satan as brands from the burning. Go with me to 1
Corinthians chapter 1. 1 Corinthians chapter 1. Look at verse 18. 1 Corinthians chapter 1. And back up to verse 17 even. 1 Corinthians chapter 1 verse
17. For Christ sent me not to baptize,
but to preach the gospel. Well, that means that salvation
is not by baptism or regeneration. We don't ever take anybody into
the waters of baptism to wash sins away. Those waters back there, they
can't wash anybody's sins away. They were never intended to.
Baptism is a picture of the death, the burial, and the resurrection
of Jesus Christ. That's the way God washes sins
away. through the death of Christ Jesus.
Now when he says Christ sent me not to baptize, well that
ought to dash forever in pieces this idea that you're baptized
to wash your sins away when Paul says he didn't send me to baptize.
Well what did he send you to do Paul? He says to preach the
gospel. Not with wisdom of words, lest
the cross of Christ should be made of none effect. For the
preaching of the cross is to them that perish, to those who
are perishing, literally, it's foolishness. But unto us who
are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written, I
will destroy the wisdom of the wise and will bring to nothing
the understanding of the prudent. Where is the wise? Where is the
scribe? Where is the disputer of this
world? Hath not God made foolish the
wisdom of this world? For after that, in the wisdom
of God, the world by wisdom knew not God. After all the years,
4,000 years since creation, up until the time that Christ came, God had given men room to show
if there is some wisdom that they have, that they can figure
out how man can be accepted before God. And after 4,000 years, all
it showed is man's ignorance, man's foolishness. Man by wisdom can't know God,
not by his wisdom. For after that, in the wisdom
of God, the world by wisdom knew not God. With all their philosophers,
with all their wise men, with all their learned men, with all
their education, with all their religious upbringing and training,
none of them knew the way to God. That's when it pleased God by
the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. That's
when Christ came into the world. Look at verse 22. For the Jews
require a sign, the Greeks they seek after wisdom, but we preach
Christ crucified. You may look for a sign and you
may seek after wisdom, but here's what we're going to do. We're
going to preach Christ crucified. Under the Jews, the stumbling
block, they fall over it. They trip over it. He's the rock
that they refuse. He's the chief cornerstone. They
wouldn't have anything to do with Him. We still preach Christ
and Him crucified. And to the Greeks, foolishness.
The Greeks are looking for philosophy. They're looking for deep thinking.
They're looking for the wisdom of this world. The Apostle Paul
says, therefore the gospel is to them foolishness. But unto
them which are called, effectually called, powerfully called, both
Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. Because the foolishness of God
is wiser than men and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
For you see, your calling, brethren, You see your calling, you know
your calling, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not
many mighty, not many noble are called, but God hath chosen the
foolish things of the world to confound the wise, and God hath
chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things
which are mighty, and base things of the world, and things which
are despised hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not,
to bring to naught things that are." What? Why does God do it
this way? That no flesh should glory in
His presence. God is going to get all the glory
of salvation. He says, I'm the Lord. That's my name. My glory will
I not give to another. He's not going to give it to
you. He's not going to give it to the preacher. He's not going
to give it to the soul winner. God's glory is reserved for Himself. And He'll have it all. You're
not going to get any glory. And you know what? We don't want
any. Do we? We don't want any. Because we
don't deserve any. Well, what do we have except
that which He gave us? What do we know except that which
He has taught us? But of God are you in Christ
Jesus. Well, how are we in Christ? Well,
because God put us in Christ. who of God is made unto us wisdom,
and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption, that according
as it is written, he that gloryeth, let him glory in the Lord. This
is this one gospel we preach. Look over in the second chapter.
Just keep on reading. Verse 1, And I, brethren, when
I came to you, came not with excellency of speech, or of wisdom,
declaring unto you the wisdom or the testimony of God? For
I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ
and Him crucified." In fact, he says, when I was with you,
I was in weakness and in fear and in much trembling. He said,
my speech, my preaching was not with enticing words of man's
wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that
your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the
power of God. You see, salvation, it's the
power of God. God saves sinners. By His omnipotence,
by the effectual working of His mighty power within us. Now one of the apostles says
over in chapter 9 verse 16, For though I preach the gospel, I
have nothing to glory of, for necessity is laid upon me, yea,
woe is unto me if I preach not the gospel. And I, since I'm a preacher,
I think I can say this about preachers. About most preachers,
there's a great big woe hanging over their heads, because they
don't preach the gospel. Oh, they use the word gospel,
but they're not preaching the gospel of God. What is the gospel
of God? Well, the word gospel means good
news. So this good news, therefore,
it has to be about what God does for sinners, not what sinners
do for God. Does that make sense? If it's
good news, If it's good news, it's got to be the good news
of what God in Christ Jesus has already done for sinners. You
see, the gospel is a declaration of a work that has already been
finished and accomplished. The work of Jesus Christ the
Lord. Well, what was that work? Behold
the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world. Why
was He manifest? He was manifested to take away
our sins. And in Him is no sin. Those who
are in Him have no sin. The good news is what He did. Not what He did plus what you
must add to it. You say, but a man's got to believe.
Faith is necessary. There's no question about that.
But faith is a gift. It's a gift that God does, that
God gives you, and faith merely receives the message of the gospel. But the gospel is a declaration
of a finished work. It's not good news that salvation
is available for you. It's not the good news that there
is some possibility that you can be forgiven. No, the gospel
is a declaration that Jesus Christ has come into the world and He's
finished the work that the Father gave Him to do. Now what was
that work? What was that work? Thou shalt
call His name Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sins. That's the work He came to do.
Now, did He do it? Well, if He didn't do it, He
shouldn't be called Jesus. Is that right? If He didn't do
it. Because He came to save His people from their sins. Well,
the question is, did He do that? Yes, He did that. Well, how do
you know? The Scriptures tell us, the empty
tomb tells us. God would not have raised Him
from the dead, He would not have been exalted, He would not have
been coronated in heaven as King of kings and Lord of lords, except
He had finished the work that the Father gave Him to do. He satisfied God. We don't change this message.
I know every once in a while somebody will say to me, we need
a little more. More what? Who do you want to
hear about? What do you want to hear? You
see, God's preachers have one message and one message alone.
No matter where we start in this book, no matter which book, 66
books here, but they all tell the same story. It's His story. His story. And that's what we
do. I wish I could tell every preacher
to just preach Jesus Christ and Him crucified. I'd like to get
up before a bunch of preachers. And I've done this before. I was invited to preach in a
ministerial meeting of Sovereign Grace Preachers in Michigan.
And I got up and preached Jesus Christ. He's the message of the
whole Bible. And I never got invited back. Never got invited back. What do men do? What do they say? And I would
say, why should anybody ever listen to them again? Listen,
if you come hear me and I don't preach Jesus Christ and Him crucified,
that's my fault. If you come back and hear me
again and I don't preach Jesus Christ and Him crucified, that's
your fault now. You go here and listen to a man
one time and he doesn't preach the gospel? Well, he said some
pretty interesting things. I think I'll go back and hear
him again and he still doesn't preach the gospel. You're just
crazy. I don't know what you're thinking. We go to hear the God. We come
here to hear of Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Go back over
here to our text and I'll try to wrap this up. But John says,
Behold the Lamb of God. And when he mentioned the Lamb,
that would have immediately, immediately sent the mind of
the Jew back to the sacrifice offered every morning and offered
every evening. Our brother read to us from Numbers
chapter 28. Every morning at nine o'clock,
a lamb died. Every afternoon at three o'clock,
a lamb died. Every day that went on until
the Sabbath. And on the Sabbath day, two lambs
died in the morning, two lambs died in the afternoon. I preached
to you about all those offerings. You know, God always kept death
in front of those people. Blood. Blood. What gore. What a bloody mess. The priests
would have had blood all over their white garments. Using a
knife and slitting the throat of those animals. Blood spewing
out everywhere. Catching blood in a basin. Blood
poured out at the altar. Blood taken inside the holy place. put on the horns of the altar?
Blood everywhere. Isn't it obvious that God kept
death in front of those people all the time? He kept blood right
before their eyes. The blood of a substitute. And
every one of those lambs said, listen, y'all ought to die and
you deserve to die. But this lamb is dying in your
stead. And John says, Behold the Lamb
of God, who died in the stead of sinners. He died so that we
would never die. You say, Oh, but you're going
to die, preacher. This body is going to fall asleep.
Asleep of death. But I'm not going to die. My
soul is not going to die. I can't die. Christ died for
me. It can't be that He die and I
die too. It can't be that my sins would
be transferred to Him, imputed to Him and He take them away
and then I still bear them. That's an absolute impossibility. He took away the sins of His
people. His people don't have any sin. God in His justice can't find
any sin in His Israel. We're blameless and spotless
in God's sight. Who did this for us? The Lamb. The Lamb. And when these Jews,
they heard, Behold the Lamb of God, immediately they would have
thought of a sacrifice. And that sacrifice dying as a
substitute. I know that the first time John
declared this message, it seemed that nothing happened, but really
something did happen. In fact, something always happens
when the Lamb of God is preached. Do you know that? First of all,
the Lamb is honored. Listen, if you don't believe,
let's just say nobody in here believed. And I'm thankful many
of us do, most of us do. Would God all of us believe?
Well, let's say nobody believed. You know, when I preach about
the Lamb of God, He's being exalted. His name's being lifted. If you
don't believe, still, He's pleased. It's a sweet savor to the Lord. Why, we hold up Jesus Christ
and Him crucified. His sacrifice is a sweet savor
to God. And as we preach that gospel
again and again, it's still a sweet savor to God. He's still magnified. He's still exalted. We keep preaching
the gospel. And I'll tell you another reason,
something else, whenever we preach the Lamb of God, something happens
to everyone who listens. Let me tell you something. this evening to the gospel of
the Lamb of God. Did you know there's a sense
in which you'll never be the same again? This message has
had an effect upon you. That's right, it's done something. It's had some effect upon you,
either for good or for bad. It's either a savor of life and
the life for some, To others, it's a savor of death unto death. You're not unaffected by what
you heard tonight. Now, you may think, well, it
didn't have any effect upon me. Oh, it's had an effect upon you. It's either softened you or it's
hardened you. The gospel always does it. You
see, the gospel, when it goes forth, it always accomplishes
God's purpose. I don't know what God's purpose
is in having you here tonight. I hope it's for your good. But
it might be to hold you without excuse. I don't know. I don't know. That's God's business. That's God's business. John preached this one message.
That's what we do. Now, it'll have a different effect. Some believe and some believe
not. We don't have any control over
that. And nobody's going to go up to
you after the service. I'm certainly not going to go
up to you and say, well, did you believe what I preached tonight?
And if you ever invite a family member or a friend and they come
and hear the gospel, don't go ask them, what did you think
of that? Just leave them alone. Leave
them alone. Listen, when the gospel goes
forth, if it is sent forth by the power of the Spirit, you
can rest assured it will get the job done. God will do the
work. And I know a lot of times we
just want to ask somebody, well, do you like that? Do you like
that preaching? Just don't ask. Just leave them
to the Lord. You see, He has to do the work
and we know that. I can't urge you anymore. Indeed,
I pray, I say to all of you, behold the Lamb of God, but that's
all I can do. That's all anybody can do is
tell you. But I know who can give you eyes
to really behold Him. The Lord can, if He will. Lord,
if You will, You can show me mercy. If You will, it's up to
You. I tell you, that leper, he came down the mountain. He
watched the Savior come down the mountain. That leper, he
needed help. And he just fell down before
the Lord of glory. He said, if you will, you can
show me mercy. It's up to your will. It's up
to your will, Lord. See, it's not your will. It's
His will. And His will is going to be done. That's for sure. Well, that's scene 205. Is that right? Number 205, once for all, once
for all, for the people of God we can sing, free from the law,
O happy condition, blessed state that we're in, those of us who
by grace have beheld the Lamb of God. Number 205, let's stand
and we'll be dismissed with the singing of this hymn.