The God and God of men, glory
and honor, great adoration, evermore, evermore be done. Paris loved 10,000. A Bright
and Morning Star, he's called. Go with me to the book of Matthew. Matthew chapter 2. We've been
going through Matthew's account of the Gospel. Read with me one verse. The last
verse of Matthew 2. Let's go ahead and read verse
19 down through verse 23. When Herod was dead, behold,
an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt,
saying, Arise and take the young child and his mother and go into
the land of Israel. But they are dead which sought
the young child's life. And Joseph arose and took the
young child and his mother and came into the land of Israel.
And when he heard that Archelaus did reign in Judea in the room
of his father Herod, he was afraid to go thither. Notwithstanding,
being warned of God in a dream, he turned aside into the parts
of Galilee. And he came and he dwelt in a
city called Nazareth, that it might be fulfilled which was
spoken by the prophets, he shall be called of Nazarene. Jesus the Nazarene. Much more than meets the eye
here. The first two chapters of Matthew
alone, just in the first two chapters, story after story,
line upon line, that proves this to be God's infallible Word and
proves this one to be God's infallible Son, the Christ. You remember
in chapter 1, it began with the generation, the book of the generation
of Jesus Christ. That is, all life began with
Him. And you remember with me the
stories of the people and their lives that were intertwined,
and they all led together to bring in the Christ child, God
with us. You remember all those stories
we looked at? Some of them, anyway. And then we looked at His amazing,
miraculous birth. Born of a virgin. Why He was
born of a virgin. Scriptures that prophesied of
that. And all that transpired in just a few months, a few months
to fulfill the Scripture, to fulfill the prophecy. Born in
Bethlehem. They had to go back to Bethlehem,
remember, to pay their taxes. Because he had to be born there.
He had to be born in the city of Bethlehem. The lot is cast
into the lap. But the whole disposing thereof
is of the Lord. Joseph and Mary went to pay their
taxes again. And that's where Christ's child
was born because Scripture has declared it. The son of David
in Bethlehem. And then out of Egypt, they went
to Egypt in God's providence. to Egypt, fled according to God's
command, flee into Egypt. Why? Because the Scriptures prophesied
of the Christ child that, out of Egypt have I called my son,
who is a type, and we didn't look at that, but he's a type
of Moses, you remember, was the prince in Egypt. And God raised
him up and called him out to bring his people out. Christ
is the Prince and came into this world of which Egypt represents
and brought His people out. He brought Him out of this world
and us with Him. Then remember one Wednesday night
we looked at Rachel weeping for her children. Rachel weeping for her children.
Great mourning such as never before. And God's child, the
Christ child, was right in the middle of that. He was the cause. He was the cause of all that
grief and sorrow. It was for Christ's sake that
those babies were slaughtered. We looked at that. What an amazing
story that was. Christ, the central figure in
all of that. And in God's amazing providence,
bringing His parents, His purported parents, Joseph and him to Galilee. All right, he has to come back
to Galilee to a town called Nazareth. Where he will be raised until
he's 30 years old. He will spend all his days in
Nazareth until he's 30 years old in order to be called the
Nazarene. Jesus, the Nazarene. Why? Well, this story, and I will
fail miserably, as I feel like I always do, but I will fail
miserably to bring out the great condescension of the Son of God
who came to this earth to be called a Nazarene. Now, he's often called Jesus
the Nazarene throughout the Scripture. Though he was born in Bethlehem,
he grew up in Nazareth of Galilee. Nazareth was a small country
town, a little insignificant, rough and rustic country town. It was despised. It was despised
by everybody, especially those in the big cities like Jerusalem. Jerusalem, as you know, was a
metropolitan city of people from all over the world with great
style and substance and culture and education and so forth. Well,
Nazareth was the exact opposite of that. Nazareth was a lowly
place, the very opposite of Jerusalem, a poor place full of ignorant,
primitive, uneducated country folk. And everybody, if it was
anybody, turned their thumbs down on Nazareth. Go over with
me to John chapter 1. Nazareth was despised. It was
the butt of jokes, much like people make fun of places today,
don't they? Such as Franklin County. Despised and rejected, or the
whole state of West Virginia for that matter. It's true, isn't
it? Appalachia is like Galilee. men from Galilee, they all had
an accent. That's what they said about Peter.
They said, you're from Galilee, your speech betrays you. And
they ridiculed and mocked and scoffed at these ignorant, uneducated,
poor, rough country folk from Galilee, let alone Nazareth. Nazareth. Galilee was despised
enough, bad enough, but to be from Nazareth was worse. And
to be called a Nazarene, for anybody to call you a Nazarene
was the utmost contempt and ridicule of your person. He's called Jesus
the Nazarene. The Nazarene. Look at John chapter
1. The story of Nathanael, Nathanael of whom the Lord says, a man
with no God. In other words, Nathanael was
not given to speaking bad of others. He was given to speaking
the truth and not evil of anyone. But when he heard from Philip,
look at verse 43, they following Jesus would go forth into Galilee
and find that Philip and saith unto him, follow me. was of Bethsaida,
the city of Andrew and Peter. Philip findeth Nathanael, and
saith unto him, We have found him of whom Moses in the Law
and the Prophets did write." That is, the Christ. And he said he's Jesus of Nazareth,
son of Joseph. And Nathanael said unto him, Can there any good thing come
out of Nazareth. Surely the Christ, the Son of
God, the prophets of whom Moses wrote, the priests, the great
high priest, the king will not come from Nazareth. Surely not. And Philip said,
well, come and see. You know, we go visit a little
place up in West Virginia called Dingus, West Virginia. You have
to see that place to believe it. It's like going back in time,
isn't it? You literally go through a tunnel,
an old railroad tunnel. How long is it, John? About a
mile long. An old railroad tunnel converted into a one-lane road
to get to that coal mining town of Dingus, West Virginia. And
you're talking about a place on the side of the road, in the
middle of those coal mines, in the middle of Appalachia, ramshackle
houses for the most part. Can anything good come out of
Dingus? You ought to come and see. Men
and I have been there many times. The salt of the earth lives there. Gary Vance and his lovely wife,
Alberta, have been here. You've met them. Oh, my. Well, that's what they were saying.
That's what Nathaniel said. That's what they said about Nazareth.
Can anything good come out of Nazareth? Surely no prophet,
priest, certainly no king would come from that despicable place
called Nazareth. To be called a Nazarene was a
name of dishonor and disrespect. You're a Nazarene. Europe from
West Virginia. They put that name over his head
when he was crucified. In mockery and derision, they
said, this is Jesus of Nazareth. To mock the Jew. The king of
the Jews came from, of all places, Nazareth. But the Lord was not ashamed
of that name. Nor is he ashamed to call the
meek and the lowly and the nobodies of this earth. In fact, that's
who he makes his disciples, what I've said. When he appeared to Saul of Tarsus
on the road to Damascus, you know how he introduced himself?
When Saul fell to the ground before the sovereign Lord in
whose hands his life and his breath was, he said, Who are
you, Lord? And he said, I'm Jesus of Nazareth. He wasn't ashamed. It says here
in our text of Matthew 2, it says here it is spoken by the
prophets that he will be called the Nazarene. The word is not
in the Old Testament, Nazarene. It's not even mentioned. It wasn't
even worthy of notice. It's not mentioned. Yet throughout
the prophets, the Lord is spoken of. that He would be one who
would be rejected by men. This theme is the theme of the
Old Testament, that the Christ who was to come would be despised
and rejected, and nobody from nowhere and everybody would turn
thumbs down on Him. That's what, you know, Isaiah
53 says, He'll grow up before Him as a tender plant, as a root
out of a dry ground. And he hath no form nor cuddliness,
and when we shall see him, men saw him, they observed him, there
was no beauty, there was nothing about his outward person that
they would desire him. He looked no different than anyone
else. He is despised and rejected of men. This is the theme of
the Old Testament, that he would be called and referred to as
one who is despised and rejected, of which the Nazarene speaks
up. What this speaks of, it's the
glory of a man. It's not how high he rises. It's the glory and the honor
of a man. A man's greatness is not seen in how high he may rise
above others, but being high how far down he will come, how
far he will stoop to those beneath him. Then they say, the greatest
in the kingdom of heaven is a servant. He said, I am one among you,
he of whom angels praise and serve and the whole earth serves
his glory, became a servant. The glory of it all is our Lord's
great condescension. The Lord came down, way down,
to take the lowest of the low titles and be called Jesus of
Nazareth. It's a marvel that He would come
to this earth at all. You just read it, didn't you?
What is man that thou would be mindful of him? Isaiah said that
inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing, as grasshoppers. Yet, he came to this earth and
it was to him a cesspool. To his holy nature, to his incorrupt
nature to come to this corrupt, Scripture calls this present
evil world, it was like coming to a cesspool for him to come
to this earth at all. It was infinite condescension
for him to be born in a little place called Judea. Israel. Why not Rome? Why not Athens,
Greece? Corinth. Why not one of these
great places? No, Judea, which was in itself
despised. And further down, he was raised
in a place called Galilee. Well, why not Capernaum? Bethsaida. Greater cities than this. Lower
still he went down to a little town called Nazareth that even
the Galileans thought little of. Worse than that, lower than
that, he was not the son of a noble man, reputed to be, but they
called him a carpenter's son. A poor man's son. Why? Why? As we said, to show His
great condescension, His great love for these lowly creatures
called sinners. He who is rich, Scripture says,
and nobody can tell it. I haven't seen the unsearchable
riches of Christ, what He left to come here. We will someday,
and we will praise Him as we ought for coming here. Now, he
who was rich, Scripture says, yet for our sake. For whose sake? For our sake became poor. He
made himself of no reputation. I mean, a man was low enough
for him. A Jew was lower still. A Galilean lower still. A Nazarene
was the lowest of the low. He made himself of no reputation,
lowly, meek. He said, take my yoke upon you
and learn of me. I am meek and there is none more
low, lowly, lowly. Now, you would think someone
that would condescend like that, that he would be admired by all
and honored by all for such Come and go like that, wouldn't you?
Even the poor people eventually rejected him. Let me show you
some ways in which our Lord was despised. He was despised and
rejected for his person, his appearance. As we said, his parents
were nobodies. Mary was from Nazareth. Joseph
from Bethlehem. His parents were nobodies. Nobody
of any consequence. The town from which he came,
his appearance, his clothing that he wore, simple, very lowly. One time he came riding into
town on a donkey. Why? To fulfill the scripture. Zechariah said, your king is
going to come the first time meek and lowly. to condescend,
to come down to the lowest of the low, to save the most sinful
of the sinful. There was no outward beauty,
we just read that, no outward beauty about him that anyone
should desire. He was a very plain, very common-looking
Jewish man. There was nothing remarkable
at all about his outward appearance. Scripture says that. When they
saw him, they didn't see he was not taller than anyone else,
he was not more handsome. In fact, it said there was no
beauty at all in him, perhaps very, very, very plain. And for that reason, he was despised.
The Jews wanted someone like Saul. You remember King Saul,
who stood head and shoulders above everybody else, known for
his beauties. But the Scriptures does say that.
God says of His Son, though there is no outward beauty in Him that
man should desire Him, God said of His Son, He is altogether
lovely, the fairest of ten thousand, the bright and morning star.
His beauty was hid from the view of man. Beauty, we always say,
is only skin deep. Well, man can't get any further
than that. God sayeth not as man sayeth.
Man looks on the outward countenance. The beauty, true beauty of our
Lord Jesus Christ was, the Scripture says, the beauty of holiness.
The beauty of holiness is not seen by a natural man. A natural
man can't recognize it because he doesn't have any of it. He
doesn't have any of it. We can only recognize what's
in ourselves and others. But this beauty of holiness,
man, that's sinful, rejected it. But God says he's altogether
lovely. Like the tabernacle of old, and
I'm not careful, I'm spending too much time here. But the tabernacle
of old, you know, was just a plain brown tent in the wilderness.
And that whole tabernacle or tent wherein the worship of God
was carried on, which God gave the pattern of, everything in
it, meticulous orders concerning that tent in which he was to
be worshipped, everything in it, the ceremonies and all that
would go, on inside that tent were typical types and pictures
and symbols of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, who would come
to this earth in a body, in flesh and blood, God's Son, though
altogether lovely, but He would disguise Himself in human flesh,
robe Himself in human flesh. And like that tabernacle of old,
it was covered with a badger skin, a brown skin, so that those
passing by, it was nothing to them. People passing by would
see that plain brown tent in the middle, and people scurrying
around and going in and coming out and all that, and people
gathered around. They said, what are they doing there? And someone
would say, that's where God is. That's where God meets in that
little brown tent. That's the only place where God
meets in that little brown tent. They say that's the only place
where the God of heaven can be known and seen and heard from
in that little brown tent in the wilderness. And the world
passing by, ha! Are you kidding? Scoffed and
mocked. But to the chosen few, those
Jews whom God had chosen, He allowed them to go inside Some of the made priests unto
God would go on the inside of that brown tent. And you have
never seen anything like it. The Shekinah glory of God. That
was where God really was. The world couldn't see it, but
His people saw it clearly. That's Christ. He wore, as it
were, a plain brown wrapper. Brown-skinned Jew. But on the
inside, if he shows you, if he reveals himself to you, you'll
see the altogether lovely one. He wore no clerical collar. He
wore no phylacteries. He wore no religious clothing. He wore common garments. In fact, his one garment or robe
was a seamless robe. For those of you who know, there's
glory seen in that. That's his pristine, perfect
person without sin, without flaw. He was despised for his appearance,
his personality. He was despised for his companions.
His companions were not the rich and the famous. They were not
somebodies of the world. They said in derision of him,
this man receiveth sinners and eateth with them. This Nazarene
fellow, while his companions are publicans and harlots of
all people. Isn't that wonderful? Yes, his
companions are the blind, the halt, and the lame. This Nazarene. He was despised for his disciples.
See, he was a teacher. They called him that, Master.
They gave him some measure of respect, but they didn't really
hear what he said. But they called him Master, and
he was despised for the disciples or the students that gathered
around him. They were unlearned, ignorant,
rough plains like himself, like this Nazarene. Most of them,
of all things, were fishermen. What do fishermen know? In fact,
at Pentecost, they all said, these Galileans, where did they
get this learning? They had never even went to school.
That's right. Proves who their master is, doesn't
it? Proves who he is. Despise these
disciples of him. He didn't call one single Scribe,
Pharisee, doctor or lawyer, not one. Didn't call one of them
to be his disciple. Not one rabbi. Not one. And so,
needless to say, all those rabbis, doctors and lawyers and scribes
turned their thumbs down on him and said, what does he know?
This Nazarene. Then he was despised most of
all. And here we come to this. He was despised for what he said.
He's despised then and he's despised even more today in our modern
day. This is the most despicable,
old-fashioned and ridiculous mockery, to make a mockery of
what the Son of God said. Not what I said, not what John
Calvin said or some Puritan, but what Jesus Christ said. Listen
to what he said. He said to a Jewish rabbi one
day, this Jewish rabbi came to him, a man probably in his fifties
or sixties named Nicodemus, had been teaching Jewish religion
all those years, looked up to and esteemed highly by all, a
man of great repute or renown. He said to that Jewish rabbi, you must be born again. Now, do you know of anything
in our modern day that's more scoffed at than that statement? Do you? I know men and women
all over use that term, bandy it about and misuse it and abuse
it. I know they use it, but you know
who said it first. You know who said this? Jesus
Christ. And He said to that lawyer, that
Pharisee, that scribe, that man, who thought he knew something
when he knew nothing. He said, you must be born again. Marvel not that I said unto you,
you must be born again. And that fella couldn't figure
it out and people can't today. And what the Lord was saying
is, you must be given spiritual life by God. You've got flesh
and blood life, but no greater than an animal. You must be given
spiritual life. God is a spirit, and God alone
must give you that spiritual life. Like an earthly parent
must give life to a child, even so the father must give life
to his children. That's what he said. Everyone, he said, from the philosopher,
or today, the president to the prostitute must be born again.
From Pharisee to Republican. Men don't like that. We don't
like that. They didn't like it then. They said, what does this
Nazarene know? He said to the scribes one day,
Bible scholars. Scribes fancied themselves to
be experts on Bible, you know. He said unto them, you search
the Scripture. He said, you search the Scripture.
You do. You read them. You memorize them. You know them.
You know the Greek, the Hebrew, the Greek. He said, you search
the Scripture and in them you think you have life. You know
the meaning of life. You know what it is to live.
He said, they are they which testify of me. They all testified
me, Christ said. Jesus Christ said, this whole
book speaks of me. This is God's book and He wrote
it about me. They said, this Nazarene, what
does he know? What does he know? What's he do? He said to the
lawyers, you know. Pharisees were lawyers. They
loved to talk about Moses' law, you know. They loved, they thought,
they answered themselves to keep Moses' law. They thought they
knew the law. They thought they kept the law.
And they prided themselves in keeping it, holier than thou,
you know, these men. He said, if you had known Moses,
if you had believed Moses, you'd believe me. Moses wrote of me. It's all about me. In the volume of the book, he
said, it's written of me. That's what he said. Oh, that
made them bloody mad. Who are you to tell us about
the scriptures? We're Pharisees. You're a Nazarene. He said to those same Pharisees
who appeared to be holy to people, and people thought they were,
at least they seemed to be. They were very separatist and
touch not, taste not, handle not and all that. He said, you're
whited graves. You appear unto men to be holy,
but on the inside you're full of... He said, I know your thoughts. And he said, he turned to the
people and he said, don't listen to these hypocrites. He said,
they're putting on a show. Every one of them are doing what
they do for a show. That's what he said. They're hypocrites.
Everyone up. He turned to the people and he said, you listen
to me. He said, you listen to me. He said, it's not that which
goeth into the mouth that defileth a man. There's nothing you can
put in this body to affect a man's soul. Oh, man, then and now, they just,
whoa, what are you talking about? He said to the Jews, everyone
that heard him, he said, except you eat my flesh and drink my
blood, you have no part in me. And they said, what in the world
is he talking about now? Is this cannibalism? They didn't have a clue. Do you? Do you? One time the Lord walking along.
And the Pharisees got furious at him. He preached not only
what he said, but how he said it. He preached in parables.
Simple little earthly stories that told spiritual heavenly
things. And they were so simple that they couldn't figure them
out. They were like riddles and they couldn't figure them out.
Nobody could. Like Samson's riddles, like Solomon's
and so forth. But he revealed these things
unto the babes. We read that, didn't we? Out
of the mouths of babes. And one time he turned and said,
I thank you, Father, you've hid these things from the wise and
the prudent and revealed them unto babes. And he took his disciples
aside and said, you listen to me, I'm going to tell you what
all this means. And he does that still today. Except you eat my flesh and drink
my blood, you have no part in me." In other words, if Christ
be not in you, if everything he said and did is not your life,
you don't have life. He that hath the Son hath life. He that hath not the Son, no
matter what he says, he hath not life. That's what he said. That's what Jesus Christ said.
To the Jews, he said, to all Jews and Gentiles, he said, all
power is given unto me in heaven and earth. All power. In heaven? A man? He said, as the Father hath the
power to quicken whom he will, even so the Son quickeneth whom
he will. All judgment is mine. I judge all flesh. That man of Nazareth? He says, I have the keys of hell
and death. Hell? Come on, that old-fashioned doctrine,
are you kidding? Who believes in that? Jesus Christ
talked about it more than anybody. He said, if you believe not that
I am, you'll die in your sins. He said, I am from above, you're
from beneath. They said, we know who you are,
you're the carpenter's son. You're a Nazarene though. He
said, you're from this world. I'm not from this world. You're
from beneath. I'm from above. He said, if a man keep my sayings,
he'll never see death. He'll never die. He'll live forever. He said, before Abraham was,
I am. He said, I am the way. There is no other way. into the
other realm, but by man. I am the life. I am the truth. All else beside me is false. He said, I am the truth. No man
cometh unto the Father, but by man. That's what he said. That's what Jesus Christ said.
And I hated it then, and I hate it now. And I just repeated what
he said. But most especially now, most
especially hated, he said, for this cause came
out into the world. He kept telling his disciples,
the Son of Man is going to be betrayed by a sinful man, and
he's going to go into Jerusalem, and there he's going to be taken
and crucified and killed by wicked men. And he's going to be buried,
and the third day he's going to rise again. He said Christ,
according to Scripture, speaking of Himself, He said Christ must
suffer. That in the volume of this book
it is written of the one who would come to this earth as a
sin offering. A sin offering. A holy God. A sinful creature, a blood sacrifice. Now, would you tell me anything
that's more utterly ridiculous and scoffed at today than that?
That's the most old-fashioned, barbaric... Yes, it is old-fashioned. God began to say that all the
way back in Genesis 3. And the whole book speaks of
it. And when Christ came, He said, I'm He. I'm the One. I'm the Sin Offering. I'm the
One. come into this world to take away the sin of the world. I'm the scapegoat. People talk
about a scapegoat. It's a real thing. It's a real
person. It's Jesus Christ. Now, he said,
I'm the scapegoat. John preached one day. He said,
Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world.
This is the one upon whom God, the Holy God, will lay all His
wrath upon for the iniquity of Mom. And He's going to suffer.
Going to suffer. at the hands of God, the innocent
for the guilty, the just for the unjust, to bring us to God,
to make us righteous. And they hated that. They did
not believe that the Christ would come to die. They thought He
would come to live and establish a Jewish kingdom and a temple,
and they go through the motion. Not come to die? What are you
talking about? And they don't believe it now.
And they said, the Jews, the Jews, this was a stumbling block.
Got in the way of all their works, because by the deeds of the law,
nobody is going to be justified. It doesn't matter how hard you
try. Christ said, nobody is going to be justified, accepted by
God, no matter how moral and how what you do. All the days
of your life, all the philanthropy is not going to do anything for
you. Only what I do for you will be
accepted by God. And they just got furious. And
men get furious at that. And the Greeks thought this is
foolishness, this is barbaric. The Greeks learned it and they
said, this is utterly barbaric, a blood sacrifice. Well, there's
heathen in the jungle that do this, sacrifice virgins and so
forth to their gods. Surely we're above that. No, that's what Jesus Christ
said. And so they said, to sum it all
up, what does he know? He's just a Nazarene. I can't help but laugh. He that
sitteth in the heavens laughs, that's what Psalm 2 says. I tell
you what though, to those whom he reveals himself, to those
whom he said have heard his voice, he said, my sheep hear my voice.
They said, we didn't hear a voice. We heard thunder. No, you didn't. But his people do, just as real
as if he spoke. He said, My sheep hear My voice.
He said, You believe not to those scribes and pharisees. You believe
not because you're not My sheep. As I said unto you, My sheep
hear My voice. I know them. I came for them.
And they'll follow Me. I'll call them. Every one of
them is going to hear Me. What is it? It's this gospel
I've just been preaching to you. They hear His voice. They see
His glory. Everyone that heareth His voice
and seeth the Son, See if His glory, see if their need of Him,
see if His righteousness feels their sin and guilt. See Him as their sin offering,
Christ in Him crucified, the Lamb of God to take away their
sin. They all say to a man and to
a woman, Jesus of Nazareth. What a wonderful name. Of Nazarene. My, my, what wonderful condescension. I like what Spurgeon said, he
said, he condescended without being condescending. Oh my. You ever been around somebody
that thought they knew everything? Can't get a word in edgewise,
you know, they know everything. Scripture says if a man thinks
he knows anything, has anything mastered, he knows nothing, yet
he ought to know. Our Lord did know everything. He was in the
world, the world was made by him, the world knew him not.
And yet he taught his disciples, those men who seemed to be his
very own age, and he taught them in a very kind, compassionate
way and not in a condescending way, and they received every
word he said. Marvelous. That's greatness in it. And let me close by saying this. It's been time in these things,
and my timer went out. Oh well. He's called the Nazarene,
and there's a name of disrespect and derision. And you know his followers are
called Nazarenes? They said of Paul, the apostle,
they said, this fellow is a pestilent fellow. He's a ringleader of
the sect, that cult, called the Nazarenes. He's a ringleader of the Nazarene.
In other words, they thought, they looked at all of the followers
of Jesus the Nazarene as just a bunch of Nazarenes. Ridiculed
and mocked for believing him. You believe he, you actually,
are you that narrow-minded to think that he is it? That he
is the only faith, that there is no other? Would you reject
all the religions of the world, all the many peoples of this
world, and say that he's the only one? That's right. He said it, straight as a gate
and narrow as a weapon. Peter preached it that day, said,
neither is there salvation in any other, for there is none
other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be
saved. At the name of Jesus of Nazareth. So while the world mocks, his
followers marvel. While the world scoffs, his people
worship him. While the world rejects him,
his people receive him. While the world sits in the seat
of the scorner, his people stand amazed in the presence of Jesus,
the Nazarene, and wonder how he could love me, the sinner,
condemned, unclean. How marvelous. Let's sing that,
Brother John. Come up here. That is, what number, 252? 452, I'm sorry, 452.