I had intended this week to entitle
the message, the messenger and the message. But the more I studied,
I learned from John the Baptist, we won't spend too much time
on the messenger. We'll spend time on the message. So the title
of the message is Behold the Lamb of God. Let's begin reading
in verse 19. This is the record of John. When
the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, who
are you? He confessed and denied not, but he confessed, I'm not
the Christ. And they asked him, what then,
art thou Elias? He said, I'm not. Art thou that
prophet? And he answered, no. Now you
remember John was from the tribe of Levi. These were probably
some of his own relatives that came to him in this committee
from the Pharisees to search him out and find these things
out about him. And the first thing they tried with him was
flattery. And they must, it's not recorded,
but they must have asked him if he's the Christ because he
confessed, he denied not, no, I'm not the Christ. That's pretty
flattering. Well, he said, well, if you're
not the Christ, are you Elijah? Now, why would they ask John
if he's Elijah? That's pretty flattering too. Why are you Elijah?
Well, the reason they asked that is because of a prophecy in Malachi
4 verse 5, that the Lord would send Elijah before the coming
of the Lord. Now that prophecy did refer to
John the Baptist, but it's not that he would actually be Elijah
come again, but that this prophet, this forerunner would come with
the same spirit and the same power that Elijah came in. Look
over in Luke chapter one, back in Luke chapter one, I'll show
you that. That he would come in the same spirit and power
as Elijah. And he should go before him in
the spirit and power of Elias, to turn the hearts of the fathers
to the children, the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, and
to make ready a people prepared for the Lord. He would come with
the same spirit, the same power, the same message as Elijah, the
same message as all the prophets. I'm not Elijah. They said, well,
then are you that prophet? Are you that prophet that Moses
prophesied of that would come? And he said, no, I'm not that
prophet. That prophet's the Messiah. So
no, I'm not the Messiah. I'm not that prophet. And you
see what they're doing. They're tempting him with praise.
They're trying to puff him up. Are you the Christ? Are you Elijah? Are you that prophet? Those things
are pretty flattering. What they're telling you, now
you join with us. You're out here in the wilderness. Some
people come out to hear you. You join with us, more people
will hear you. We'll get you a bigger hearing,
a bigger following. John, you're so impressive, come
back with us. More people ought to be influenced by you. And
John just gave them one word answers. I mean, he's just not
really, you know, too enthused about impressing these fellas.
And he didn't offer any information about himself. He answered their
questions. But he didn't offer any information about himself.
And you know why? You cannot speak for Christ if
you're always talking about yourself. We can't be talking about our
background and our qualifications and our experiences. The preacher's
not the issue. John's not the issue. I'm not
the issue. The preacher's not the issue. Christ is the issue. And we preach not ourselves,
but Christ Jesus. And that's what John's going
to do here. You see how he's been given some wisdom here as
he talks to him. He constantly turns them away
from himself and to the Lord Jesus Christ. Let's read on here,
verse 22. Well, then they said unto him,
well, who are you that we may give an answer to them that sin
us? What sayest thou of thyself? He said, I'm the voice of one
crying in the wilderness, make straight the way of the Lord,
as said the prophet Isaiah. Who are you? What do you have
to say for yourself, John? We've got to have an answer.
What do you have to say for yourself? John could have impressed them
with who he was. He could have told them how he's the son of
the high priest, how he's the forerunner of Christ, that he's
the one that come in the power and the spirit of Elijah. That's
not what he did. He just said, I'm a voice, just
a voice. Christ is the word. I'm just
a voice. The voice makes the word known.
The word existed before the voice. The word exists long after the
voice is silent. I'm just a voice. Christ is the
word. John was a voice that points
to the Lord Jesus Christ. And the message that John cried
to the world, he cried in the wilderness of sin. He cried,
look to Christ. And this is what our souls are.
Now this applies to us. Every one of us here was born
with a soul that is a wilderness of sin. And the message for us,
for our sinful souls, is behold the Lamb of God. Look to the
Lord Jesus Christ. God's preachers always have this
cry. Look to Christ. Look to Christ. Look to Christ. Look to Christ.
John said, I've come to make a straight path. Let's make the
path to Christ. A straight path is easy to walk. Let's make the path straight.
Let's remove all the excuses. Let's remove the distractions. People want to get off on these
detours. Let's cut off the detours. So there's a straight path, a
narrow path, a straight path that will end up nowhere but
the Lord Jesus Christ. Let's not get sidetracked. Let's
go straight to Christ. And we'll see in a minute how
important this is. to John how important it is to all God's
preachers and all God's people. I need to hear somebody preach
that's going to preach Christ. I mean, I want him to get there
quick and I want him to stay there. Show me the Lord Jesus
Christ. And that's what John does. But
this answer did not satisfy them. Look at verse 24. Now they which
were sent were of the Pharisees, and they said unto him, or they
asked him and said unto him, Why baptizest thou then, if thou
be not that Christ, nor Elias? See, first they tried flattery. That didn't get them anywhere.
Now they're trying intimidation. They're trying to intimidate
him from who sent them and who gave you the authority, John,
to do this? It wasn't Pharisees. It wasn't
Sanhedrin. We came from them. See, they're
trying to intimidate him. Now, this is a dumb question. I hate to say this is a dumb
question, but it's a dumb question. What are you doing baptizing
them? Who gave you the authority to do this? I know there's no
such thing as a dumb question. You all ask me any question you
want. What makes this question a dumb question is this. It's
the spirit in which it was asked. They're not looking for information
here. They're trying to intimidate him. But John showed us there's
a very good example of wisdom here. And we should all follow
this when we hear questions asked like this, because in our day,
this is the question that you hear. I mean, it's questions
asked in the spirit and things people argue about and talk about.
This is the way to handle these questions. Don't get sidetracked. Don't get off on that question.
Don't get chasing that rabbit. Keep turning the conversation
back to the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what John does. Look at
verse 26. John answered them, saying, I
do baptize with water, but there standeth one among you whom you
know not. He it is who, coming after me,
is preferred before me, whose shoes latch it, and I am not
worthy, done loose." Now, these things were done in Bethabara,
beyond Jordan, where John was baptizing. Bethabara, according
to history, is the place where Israel crossed Jordan into the
Promised Land, the place where they crossed Jordan into peace. None of these Pharisees saw this.
This is the way we enter into peace through this one that John's
preaching through the Lamb of God. Now, here in our day, especially,
you hear a lot of these questions and you get a lot of interest
from people about non-important religious issues and the things
they want to argue about. There's no answer for. There's no answer in Scripture
for the things that fascinate people in our day. There's no
answer for them in Scripture, so they're not given to men to
know. But people still want to argue about them and debate about
them, and they'll split with you over them, even though there's
no answer. It's pointless things. What they're
interested in is pointless things. And when you hear these kind
of arguments, and you're going to hear them now, in this day
and age where Communication is so prevalent, it's easy to hear
what somebody in Timbuktu is saying. When you hear these questions,
turn the focus back where it belongs, onto the Lord Jesus
Christ. John says, I do baptize with
water, but the important thing is not that I'm baptizing with
water. The important thing is not who gave me the authority
to do this. The important thing is what does
this baptism picture? It pictures the work. of the
Lord Jesus Christ in salvation. You fellas are all worried about
me and what I'm doing and I'm nothing. Christ is all. I'm not worthy to even bend down
and unbuckle his sandal. Christ is all. Let me tell you
about him. Which is let me tell you about
him. And that's what John does in verse 29. The next day, John's
telling them what So you want to know about me? He said, I'm not worthy. But
now Christ is all. And if you listen for a minute,
I can tell you about him. I can give you something that
will help you. The next day, John sees Jesus coming unto him
and he saith, Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the
sin of the world. Now this is the single, constant
cry. of God's preachers. Behold the
Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world." The New
Park Street Tabernacle, the congregation had outgrown the building. They
needed to build a new building. And while they were building
the Metropolitan Tabernacle, they used a place called Agriculture
Hall. Agriculture Hall must have been
a vast auditorium. And before they met there, they
wanted Charles Spurgeon to come. and test the acoustics at Agriculture
Hall. And he came one day, they were
doing some work on the building. The building was empty, just
a few workers were there. And they wanted him to test the
acoustics. He didn't know what to say. So he said, we've got
to say something. So he got up behind the podium
and he said, best brace your voice. He said, behold, the Lamb
of God which taketh away the sin of the world. The acoustics
were fine. Charles Spurgeon needed no microphone.
On the back of that building, in the upper rafters back there
in that building, was a worker. I think he was doing some plaster
work or something. And he heard Charles Spurgeon
say, Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world.
And he thought about that. And he worked and he thought
about that and he worked and he thought about that. And the
story goes, the Lord converted him. He showed up at Charles
Spurgeon's doorsteps. I heard what you said. The Lord
saved me. I became a member. at Metropolitan
Tabernacle because he beheld Christ, the Lamb of God. Now,
up to this point, John the Baptist and his ministry had called on
people to repent of their sins. Now, John's going to be the one
to show people how those sins can be forgiven. Now, we should
repent of our sin, but our repentance is never going to put away our
sin. God cannot be satisfied when a sinner repents. Because
all of our actions are sinful. When we repent, it's sinful.
We need to repent of our repentance. The only hope any sinner has
for the remission of our sin is in the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's who John and every
true servant of God constantly points to in our preaching. Behold
the Lamb of God. When John the Baptist said, Behold
the Lamb of God, He was making specific reference to that sacrifice. They offered a lamb. The daily
sacrifice was a lamb. Morning and evening, they offered
a lamb. Remember Zacharias, John's father,
was the high priest. This fellow had seen thousands
of lambs sacrificed. And he used this phrase, the
Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world, to distinguish
Christ from those ceremonial lambs. This lamb actually takes
away sin. These other lambs were just pictures.
This is the lamb. This is the one who comes to
take away sin. Now, this phrase taketh away,
it has a meaning that means taking up. The Savior, God's lamb, takes
up the sin of the world. He takes up the sin of his people
by taking it upon himself. By taking it into his body on
the tree and carrying it away forever, putting it away under
the blood of his sacrifice, Christ takes away the guilt of sin by
being made guilty for his people. And bearing that guilt away,
just like the scapegoat did of old. Remember, they had two goats.
They chose one for the scapegoat. The lot fell on one for the scapegoat.
The lot fell on the other for the burnt offering. Christ is
bold. He's the sacrifice, he's the
burnt offering, and he's the scapegoat that bore the guilt
of his people away. Christ takes away the curse of
sin by being made a curse for us. Christ takes away the punishment
of sin by dying in the place of his people as their substitute
to satisfy the law's last demand, death for sin. And he suffered
that punishment, so his people will never die eternally. Christ
takes the guilt of sin and he takes the stain of sin away from
his people by washing them in the blood of this sacrifice.
The lamb was always sacrificed in a bloody sacrifice. But it's
interesting. There's no record here of any
reaction of these men that were sent from the Pharisees to talk
to John, find out who he was. There's no reaction recorded
in scripture. They probably went away confused
and empty, thinking this guy's crazy. And that's so sad. They wouldn't have gone away
if John told them I'm Elijah, come back from the dead. That
would have held their interest. They asked John, are you that
prophet? But even if he was, they wouldn't have been interested.
When our Lord told them he is that prophet, they went away
because they weren't interested. They didn't hold their interest.
They weren't interested in a lamb for the sacrifice because they
didn't think they needed one. They thought their keeping the
law was good enough. They didn't think they were sinners.
They had no sense of their own sin. And that's the nature every
one of us here is born with. We don't know we're sinners.
We're so dead. We're so lost in sin. That we
don't know we're sinners, that we don't know we need a lamb.
That's why the constant cry is, behold, the lamb of God that
taketh away the sin of the world. These men, they would have had
a king on the throne. They would have loved to have
a king on the throne that had the power to deliver them from
Rome. They would have had even a great prophet, a reformer.
They liked that. But they didn't want anything
to do with the sacrifice, a savior sacrifice. They wanted a king
on the throne. They would never have their king
on the altar. And I'm telling you, the king
must be on the altar before we'll ever have salvation. And that's
the way we all are by nature. And what my prayer has been this
week, as I've prepared, is that God will give us life. That he'll
give somebody here this morning an interest. As I cry with John
the Baptist, behold the Lamb of God. that taketh away the
sin of the world. Let me see if I can give you
a few things about this Lamb that might make you interested
in behold, in beholding Him. When John says, Behold the Lamb
of God, he uses this phrase, this title, Lamb, to identify
the Savior. He tells us several things about
the character of Christ. The first one is this. The Lamb
of God tells us about the sinlessness of Christ. Peter said Christ
is the Lamb without blemish and without spot. This is the only
man who ever lived who never one time sinned. He was perfect
and thought word and deed. That makes him the only suitable
sacrifice for sin. He's sinless just like a lamb
is sinless. Second, when John says the Lamb
of God, he tells us about the gentleness of Christ and the
meekness of Christ. He tells us about his willingness
to suffer for sin. Isaiah said he was led as a lamb
to the slaughter. He wasn't driven to the slaughter.
He wasn't dragged to the slaughter. He was led. As a matter of fact,
he led them there. He went there willingly. He was
a willing substitute. Doesn't that make you want to
look to him? Look to him. Your only other option is to
look to the law. There's no comfort in the law.
But the gentleness of Christ and the meekness of Christ, that
gives comfort to sinners. Bruce Crabtree made this statement.
Only Bruce could say something like this. Bruce said, I love
the poem, Mary had a little lamb. I thought, what in the world
is Bruce talking about? I love the poem, Mary had a little
lamb. Bruce said, it doesn't say Mary had a little lamb. It
doesn't say Mary had a little bear. Mary had a little lamb. Because a lamb is so gentle,
you can entrust a lamb to the care of a little girl. Sinners
are comfortable coming and snuggling up to a lamb. You wouldn't be
to a bear. You wouldn't be to a lion. But
the lamb of God who puts away the sin of the world. Oh, it
gives me comfort. Does that give you comfort? Look
to him. Third, when John says the lamb
of God, he tells us that Christ is good for clothing. Sheep are
good for clothing. There's nothing like a wool blend
suit. I mean, just nothing like the
look of it, the feel of it. It's just wool. That's good for
clothing. Well, if a sinner is going to
be accepted in the presence of a holy God, we cannot come in
our filth. We cannot come in the filthy
rags of our righteousness and our obedience to the law. If
we're going to be accepted before the Father, We must be clothed
in the wedding garment that God provides. Here he is, the Lamb
of God. God's elect are all clothed in
the same garment. The righteousness of the Lamb
of God who came to take away the sin of his people. Fourth,
when John tells us that Christ is the Lamb of God, he tells
us that Christ came to be a sacrifice. That's the Lamb's function throughout
scripture, is to be the sacrifice. If you and I are going to be
saved, we must have a sacrifice for sin. God cannot be worshipped
without a sacrifice. And I'm telling you, look to
this Lamb. This Lamb is the only sacrifice
that can take sin away. There's salvation in no other.
Look to Him. And fifth, when John uses this
title, the Lamb of God, he tells us about the sufficiency of the
sacrifice of Christ. This is the Lamb of God that
takes away the sin of the world. This sacrifice got the job done.
Look over Hebrews chapter 10, and it just took one. I love
this. It just took one. Millions, I
would say, lands were sacrificed in that morning and evening sacrifice,
the Day of Atonement. How many lands were sacrificed? Never put away sin. God was never
satisfied with one of them. But Christ, the Lamb of God,
took away the sin of the world with just one sacrifice, the
sacrifice of Himself. In Hebrews 10, verse 11, every
priest standeth daily, ministering and offering oftentimes the same
sacrifices. which can never take away sins.
But this man, this Lamb, after he had offered one sacrifice
for sins forever, he sat down on the right hand of God, from
henceforth expecting to his enemies be made his footstool. For by
one offering he hath perfected forever them that are sanctified.
Whereof the Holy Ghost also is a witness to us. For after that
he had said before, This is the covenant that I will make with
them after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my laws
into their hearts In their minds will I write them, and their
sins and iniquities will I remember no more." Why? Because Christ
took them away. Now, where remission of these
is, there's no more offering for sin. It just took one. And
he took away the sin of his people. That's the sufficiency of the
sacrifice of Christ. Now, John says, Behold the Lamb
of God which taketh away the sin of the world. Now don't get
off on a tangent on this world business. This word world, what
John's referring to here is sin that's common to everyone in
the whole world. He's talking about original sin
in Adam. Every one of us, every son of Adam that's ever lived
on this world has been made guilty in Adam. Original sin. When Adam
sinned, we all were counted guilty. And he's also talking about the
sin of God's elect from all the world. Christ takes their original
sin and their personal sin and takes them away. Scripture is
crystal clear that Christ is the Savior of the whole world. But that does not mean that he
came to save every son of Adam in the whole world. If he did,
hell would be empty. There's people in hell right
now for one reason. Christ did not. If he died for
them, they wouldn't be there. So he didn't come to save every
son of Adam, people of the whole world. It does not mean that
Christ came to give every son of Adam a chance to be saved. There's no chance involved in
the sacrifice of Christ. He saved his people from their
sin. He took their sin away. What
this means is this. This is good news to us Gentiles.
Christ came to save a people out of every nation and kindred
and tongue and people under heaven. Jews and Gentiles alike. There's
no sinner too great for Christ to save. Even heathen like you
and me. He came to save people from the
whole world. And I'm telling you, he's going
to populate the new world. New heavens and new earth are
going to be filled with people because of the sufficiency of
this land. Now let me give you six points from Arthur Pink.
Thy hope will cause us to behold the Lamb of God. And make this
point. The call to behold the Lamb of
God is the cry of all Scripture. Look over at Genesis chapter
four. We won't turn to each of these, but I want you to turn
to this one. Genesis chapter four. In Genesis chapter four, we see
this. The Lamb of God typifies Genesis
4 verse 1, And Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived,
and bare Cain. And she said, I've gotten a man
from the Lord. She understood this prophecy that the Lord said
the seed of woman is going to come and crush the serpent's
head. She thought, I got him. This is the man. This is the
Messiah. It wasn't. She again bared his brother Abel.
And Abel was the keeper of the sheep, but Cain was the tiller
of the ground. In the process of time it came to pass that
Cain brought the fruit of the ground, an offering unto the
Lord. And Abel, he also brought the firstlings of his flock,
and of the fact thereof. And the Lord had respect unto
Abel, and to his offering. But unto Cain, and to his offering,
he had not respect. And Cain was very wroth, and
his countenance fell. And the Lord said unto Cain,
Why art thou wroth, and why is thy countenance fallen? If thou
doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? But if thou doest not
well, sin lieth at the door, and unto thee shall be his desire,
and thou shalt rule over him." What's his doing well and being
accepted and not doing well? It all has to do with the sacrifice.
Cain bought the works of his own hands. He brought the fruit
of the ground, the ground that just in the previous page God
had cursed. He brought a cursed offering,
the fruit of the cursed ground. And that's what our works are.
You know, by nature, we think our works are pretty good. You
know, I straightened up. I did good this week, you know. But
here's the problem. Our works come from a corrupt
fountain, from a corrupt nature that can produce nothing but
sin. And God will never accept us
and our sinful works any more than he'd accept Cain bringing
fruit from a cursed ground that was the product of Cain's sinful
hands. But Abel brought a lamb, and
the fact thereof, just as God had commanded, and Abel was accepted
in that bloody sacrifice. Abel's lamb, he pictured, he
typified the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God. And Abel's worship
was accepted because he brought a picture of Christ that God
had And sinners like you and me are eternally accepted by
God in one way. The bloody sacrifice of the Lamb
of God that God sent to take away the sin of His people. Second,
in Genesis 22, you don't need to turn there, we just preached
from it a few weeks ago. We had the Lamb prophesied. The
story of Abraham and Isaac, you know it well. God told Abraham,
Abraham take your son, your only son Isaac, You take an offering
as a burnt offering on a mountain, I'll show you." Abraham and Isaac
took off walking for three days to get there. As they walked
up that mountain, Isaac told his father, he said, here's the
fire and the wood for the burnt offering. Where's the lamb? We must have a lamb. He knew
we must have a lamb if we're going to worship God. Where's
the lamb for the burnt offering? And Abraham prophesied, my son,
God will provide himself a land for the sacrifice. And they got
up there atop of that mountain. Isaac laid down on that wood.
Why, as Abraham got ready to slit his throat and offer his
son as a burnt offering, God stopped him, showed him a ram
behind him, caught in a thicket by its horns. Abraham took that
ram and offered him up in the stead of his son Isaac. Isaac
lived. because that ram died as a substitute. He died in Isaac's place. And
Abraham prophesied of the Lamb of God that God would provide
as a sacrifice for sin. Abraham prophesied of him. John
said, here he is. This is the one Abraham prophesied
of. God has provided his son, the
Lord Jesus Christ, who will satisfy God's holy justice. And the only
hope any sinner has of living eternally is if Christ died in
our place, bearing our punishment and bearing our sin. And I'm
telling you, that's a good hope. Look to him, behold him. He's
the lamb prophesied. Third, in Exodus 12, we have
the lamb slain and the blood applied in the Passover lamb. God gave instruction to this
Passover lamb. The tenth day of the month, you
select the lamb. You watch it for four days. You
make sure that lamb is perfect. Can't have any blemish. Can't
have any spot. Can't have any weakness. Can't
have any disease. And on the appointed day, the 14th day of
the month, at the appointed time, that lamb was slain. Every father
took the lamb for his house. He slew the lamb. Caught its
blood. Roasted the body with fire. He
took that blood. He applied it to the doorposts.
He went in and shut the door. He ate that Passover. with his
family. Not a father in Israel watched
NCIS that night. They watched the firstborn. They
ate that lamb. Just as God had commanded. Staff
in their hands, shoes on their feet, and he watched his firstborn.
There she is. It didn't matter if that father
was as nervous as a cat on a hot tin roof, or if that father was
calm and cool as a cucumber. That firstborn stayed. If she's
behind the blood, God said, not if your faith is strong, I'll
pass over you. When I see the blood, I'll pass
over you. Doesn't matter, my friend, whether
we have weak faith or whether we have strong faith. And usually
we have both. Sometimes our faith is weak.
Sometimes it's strong. Usually it's weak more than strong.
But it doesn't matter. It's who our faith is in. Who are you looking to? The security
of our salvation is in the blood of the lamb that was offered
for our sin. Under the blood of Jesus, then
you're safe in the shepherd's fold. Are you under the blood
of Jesus? Then you're safe while the ages
roll. The plague of eternal death will not come nigh anyone who's
under the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, because Christ has already
died in your place and his blood has been applied to everyone
for whom he died. And God said. That blood's enough,
I'll pass over you, you're accepted because the blood has been applied.
Fourth in Isaiah 53, turn over there, I want you to see this
Isaiah 53. We have the lamb personified. And Isaiah 53, this is the first
place we find out in Scripture that this lamb is going to be
a man. In the 12 verses of Isaiah 53,
the word he, him, and his is used 25 times. I think that's
a pretty clear indication the lamb is a man. Look here in verse
1. We won't read the whole thing,
but look here in verse 1. Who hath believed our report? And
whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? shall grow up before him as a
tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground. He hath no form
nor comeliness, and when we should see him, there is no beauty that
we should desire him. He is despised and rejected of
men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid as it
were our faces from him. He was despised, and we esteemed
him not. Surely he had borne our griefs
and carried our sorrows. Yet we did esteem him stricken.
smitten of God and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities.
The chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes
we are healed. Oh, we, like Sheep, have gone
astray. We have turned every one to his own way, and the Lord
hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and
he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth. He is brought
as a lamb. to the slaughter. And as a sheep
before her shears is dumb, so he opened not his mouth. Is there
any doubt this lamb is a he? It's a man. Well, he must be
a man because he's going to be the substitute for sinful men. He became bone of our bone and
flesh of our flesh so he could be our substitute. And he will
bear the sin of his people away. And you read through the rest
of this chapter, he's going to emerge victorious. And his people,
sinners, will be victorious in him. He's the Lamb personified. Then in our text, John 1, we
have the Lamb identified. After all these years, all these
prophecies of the Lamb, all these pictures of the Lamb, John the
Baptist got the honor of being the one to identify the Messiah.
Here he is. Behold, the Lamb of God which
taketh away the sin of the world. And I tell you this morning,
You look to him. You look. This is not something
that happened 2,000 years ago. Right here today, 2013, you look
to him. Behold the Lamb of God, which
taketh away the sin of the world. God said, look unto me and be
ye saved. All the ends of the earth. For
I'm God. There's none else. There's no
other sacrifice. There's no other hope. Look to
Christ for all of your salvation. Look to him. And keep looking
to him. It's looking to Christ that saves.
And it's looking to, you know, we don't look to Christ, he saves
us and then we go off our merry way. No, we keep looking to him. Looking to Christ to give you
the right attitude. It will. Looking to Christ to
give you the right spirit as you go through this world. Looking
to Christ to make us a forgiving person, make us a loving person. Looking to Christ I'll make you
keep generously, make you be kind and gracious, tenderhearted,
looking to Christ. I'll make you an honest, hardworking
person. Keep looking to him. Behold and
keep beholding unto whom coming Peter said, keep coming to him,
keep looking to him. This is the Lamb of God identified. In Revelations 5, it's our sixth
point. We read it to open the service.
We had the Lamb magnified. and the land glorified. Christ,
the Lamb of God, is the glory of heaven. The glory of heaven
is not streets of gold. It's not being on a permanent
vacation. It's Christ. After hearing these
first five points, do we need to hear anything else to know
Christ is the glory of heaven? The glory of heaven will be being
in the presence of the Lamb of God who took away the sin of
every soul there. Our worship services, when the
Lord blesses us to have a glimpse of the Lamb of God in faith,
aren't you blessed? It will be unspeakable to see
Him as He is, nothing between. I'm telling you, that'll be gory. Oh my goodness. Beholding, behold
him with awe and wonder. Behold with awe the love of the
Lamb of God. I stand amazed in the presence
of Jesus of Nazarene. I wonder, I wonder how he could
do something so wonderful for a sinner like me. That He would
take to Himself the sin of His people. That He would agree to
be the sacrifice for those sins. I'm telling you, look to Him.
Look to Him in faith. And never take your eyes off
of Him. This word, behold, had a lot of meanings. And I pieced
together a few of them. It means pay attention. Behold. Pay attention. Don't just glance
at it. Now, pay attention. And it also
means examine. You examine him. Get in his word
and examine him. Hear the gospel preached and
examine him. And the next definitions are
these. Know, cherish and fix your attention. Pay attention
and examine this lamb of God so that you know him. Oh, if
you know him, that's salvation. If you know him, you'll cherish
him. There'll be nothing else more
precious to your soul than this Lamb of God who took away your
sins and fixed your attention on Him. Don't look for anything
else. I'm telling you, if you've seen
the Lord Jesus Christ, you're satisfied. You're not looking
for anything else. He's all you need. He's all you
want. Behold Him. The command of the gospel is
never do. The command of the gospel is
look. Behold. Just look. Don't do. Don't do something. You do something.
Do something different. The command of the gospel is
not be. Don't be something different what you are. Be what you are.
A sinner. And behold, look to the Lamb
of God, which taketh away the sin of the world. Salvation is
in a look. It's in a look. Salvation has
always been in Christ, the Lamb of God. Before the foundation
of the world. God saw his elect. He saw them
perfect, righteous, saved in his Son, because Christ was the
Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. That was God's
purpose in redemption. During man's history on this
earth, it's always been about the Lamb. I mean, as soon as
Adam and Eve were thrust from the garden, it was about the
Lamb that was slain to clothe them. It's about the Lamb of
the sacrifice It's about the Lamb on the day of the Passover.
It's about the Lamb morning and evening. It's about the Lamb.
It's about believing the Lamb. It's about looking to the Lamb.
Man's history on earth is all concerning beholding the Lamb
of God. And after time ends, it'll be
about the Lamb. We'll see the same Lamb that
John saw enthroned in glory. A Lamb that had been slain. It had been freshly slaughtered. Our Lord was crucified 2,000
years ago. He's freshly slain. That blood
is just as fresh, just as sin atoning as it was for the foundation
of the world. That's the blood that will enable
us one day to be in the presence of God. And where would you rather look?
Oh, where would you rather? Can you think of a better place
to look than Christ, the Lamb of God? Where would you rather
depend other than Christ, the Lamb of God that taketh away
the sin of the world? I hope God will enable you to
behold the Lamb of God that took away your sin, that took away
my sin. Behold Him. And if you don't
see him, ask God to give you eyes. Ask
him. Ask him to reveal himself to
you. Salvation is in a look. All right. May the Lord bless
you.