John's gospel was the last of
the four gospels to be written but it stands out amongst the
four gospels as that which sets forth Christ in his divinity
as the son of God in a unique and a powerful way. John wrote
this as an old man He'd been with Christ. He'd seen what Christ
did and said. He'd seen his Lord and Saviour
crucified, buried, and risen again. He'd seen the Gospel go
forth and be preached in Israel, in Jerusalem, and from thence
to the four corners of the known world. He'd lived through those
days when Paul, when Saul was converted and Paul went forth
and preached to the Gentiles. He'd seen trouble come in the
churches. He'd seen the opposition of men,
the persecution. the way that man sought to put
believers in Jesus Christ to death in the same way and with
the same hatred and animosity that they had to their Lord and
Saviour. John saw these things and in
old age he takes up his pen to record this Gospel which sets
forth in profound clarity the Word of God, the Son of God,
in power, in a way which no other book ever written does. And the first chapter of this
book bursts onto the scene of scripture with words and description
and truth rich and overflow into the brim in just the first chapter
we read of the word of God that word Jesus Christ the son of
God through whom God the father spake he spake by the word he
spake by the son and the worlds were created The sun shone forth
as the light that shone in the darkness. And the darkness of
this world, generation after generation after generation,
man having fallen into sin, the darkness of this world could
not comprehend or behold Jesus Christ, the Saviour. Prophets
were sent before His coming to appoint men to a Saviour whom
God would send. Their prophecies were fulfilled
to the very time and the very hour when Christ was born in
Bethlehem. Christ lived and grew as a man
to that day when He went forth in His public ministry and he
came preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom of God. But just
before he came to the knowledge of Israel in those days, there
was a man sent forth from God whose name was John. John the
Baptist. This man, as we read, came for
a witness, to bear witness of the light that all men through
him might believe. He was not that light, but was
sent to bear witness of that light. That was the true light,
Christ, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.
He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the
world knew Him not. When Christ lived in this world,
the very Son of God, the Word of God, the Creator, when the
creator was born a babe in Bethlehem and grew as a child in Nazareth
the son of the carpenter Joseph when the creator of heaven and
earth stood and walked amongst men men knew him not for who
he was he was in the world God the creator as a man walked upon
the face of this earth and the world which was made by him knew
him not. He came unto his own, he came
unto the Jews, the Israelites. who had the prophets, who had
the scriptures, who had the oracles of God that told them for hundreds
of years, thousands of years of the coming of Christ, and
they received Him not. But as many as received Him,
to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them
that believe on His name. which were born, not of blood,
nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of
God. There are some who saw Christ
for who He is. There are those who had their
eyes opened. There are those who had their
ears opened to hear Him speak. And there are those who had their
understanding opened. to know Him for who He is. Thou
art the Christ, the Son of the Living God, Peter declared. And their eyes were opened, their
ears were opened, their hearts were opened, not by them, not
by the flesh, not by the will of the flesh, not by their own
decision or reason, not by the will of man but of God. God came before his son and he
came unto this one and that one and he came and spake unto them
and pointed unto them his son and said this man is my son Jesus
Christ. and they saw, and they heard,
and they believed. And God continues to come, by
His Spirit, in the Gospel, in this day and age, and comes unto
this one and that one, perhaps you, and says, Behold, my son. Behold the Lamb of God, which
taketh away the sin of the world. this is my beloved son hear ye
him he comes where he wills where he chooses the spirit bloweth
where it listeth he comes at a time that he chooses he comes
with his gospel and he blows and he declares and he speaks
and says this is my son and if you hear him you will not turn
aside but you will be born of God by His Spirit from on high. John came to bear witness of
Him. The Word, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was made flesh
and dwelt among us. He lived as a man in this world
and He spake as a man and John declares here that we beheld
His glory. The glory as of the only begotten
of the Father full of grace and truth. We saw Him, we heard Him
but we saw in Him what others didn't see. We beheld His glory. We knew He was God. And John
the Baptist bear witness of him and cried saying, this was he
of whom I spake. He that cometh after me is preferred
before me before he was before me. And of his fullness have
all we received and grace for grace. For the law was given
by Moses but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. No man
have seen God at any time. the only begotten Son, which
is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared." No man has
seen God. Thousands of years had passed
and people had heard the voice of God at Sinai through Moses. People had the Word of God written
down in the Scriptures, but no man had beheld God. But when
God came in the person of His Son, He declared who God is. John met Jesus Christ, the Son
of God, and in him he saw the glory of God in human flesh. This is the record of John when
the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, who
art thou? He confessed and denied not,
but confessed, I am not the Christ. And they asked him, what then?
Art thou Elias? And he sayeth, I am not. Art
thou that prophet? And he answered, no. And they
said unto him, who art thou? That we may give an answer to
them that sent us. What sayest thou of thyself?
He said, I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness. Make straight the way of the
Lord, as said the prophet Esaias. And they which were sent were
of the Pharisees. And they asked him and said unto
him, Why baptizest thou then, if thou be not that Christ, nor
Elias, neither that prophet? John answered them, saying, I
baptize with water. But there standeth one among
you, whom ye know not. He it is who cometh after me,
is preferred before me, whose shoes latch it I am not worthy
to unloose. These things were done in Beth-Aborah,
beyond Jordan, where John was baptising. What a day! What a witness! The Pharisees
came to John in the wilderness and said, who art thou? And he says, I am the voice of
one crying in the wilderness. That one of whom Isaiah in his
prophecy spake that there should come one before the Son of God,
a voice crying in the wilderness, make straight the way of the
Lord. A man sent before the Son of God, the Word of God, to herald
His coming, to point the way. And on this day, that's what
John does. The next day, John 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. He was eternal. He ever lived. And I knew him not, but that
he should be made manifest to Israel. Therefore am I come baptizing
with water. And John bear 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 John writes,
And I saw and bear record that this is the Son of God. John the Baptist had been given
a promise. that whom he baptised and saw the Spirit come from
heaven like a dove and abide upon him, that one was the Son
of God. And Jesus came to him and bid
him to baptise him. and he baptized him and the spirit
came down from heaven as a dove and God from heaven spake out
this is my beloved son and he saw and he heard and he bear
record that this is the Son of God and we bear record to you
today as recorded here in Holy Scripture this one of whom John
spake 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. 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 these three verses
are what I'd like to draw your attention to this morning. 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. Who was this that passed their
way? Who was this Jesus whom they
beheld? Who was this Jesus who walked
by as they stood and beheld? He was and is the Lamb of God. And the two disciples heard him
speak and they followed Jesus. The two disciples heard John
speak to them and point out Christ and say, Behold the Lamb of God.
They heard his witness. And they beheld and saw. And
they followed Jesus. But firstly, see what it says.
In verse 35, again, The next day after, John stood and two
of his disciples. John stood and two of his disciples. And looking upon Jesus as he
walked, he saith, Behold the Lamb of God. They stood. They stopped what they were doing,
they stopped where they were heading and they stood and looked. And the consequence that day
for these two disciples of John was that they heard and they
beheld the Saviour and they followed Him. This stopping, standing
and beholding, this looking upon Jesus led to their salvation. What a day this was for them. What a day this was that brought
these dead sinners unto life. A day when they're brought to
stand and look and behold the Lamb of God. a day when God in
sovereignty comes unto them and brings them to John and brings
them to this place on the day when Jesus passes by and causes
them to behold and causes them to hear the witness of John and
causes them to follow Jesus God brought them to this place and
God took two dead sinners and through the Gospel brought them
to life. You'll note that it says again
the next day. In verse 29 we read the next
day and before that we read events that were on the day before.
we see a sequence of days a sequence of days which begins in the beginning
of John's Gospel in chapter 1 in the first few verses with the
light shining in darkness before this there was darkness as it
were and then taking us back to the very beginning of the
Scriptures to the day of creation we're reminded who it is here
the Creator, the Word of God, the One that spake and all things
were brought into being we're reminded of the first day of
the world and then there's another day and another day and on this
the next day the disciples see And in this sequence of days
we are taken to the cross and the Lamb of God crucified at
the cross and the lambs laid in the grave and the Son of God
rising and walking and going forth having conquered sin, death
and hell. And here John stands with his
disciples and points to them and they see a Saviour who has
conquered sin, death and hell for them. They see the Lamb of
God, the sacrificed Lamb of God, the Lamb slain from the foundation
of the world. They see the Lamb of God walking,
risen, alive. they see their salvation. And if you are ever to know salvation,
if you're ever to know the forgiveness of your sins, if you're ever
to know what it is to be right with a holy God and righteous
before his justice, righteous before his holy law, if you're
to be delivered from your sin and delivered from the consequence
of sin, which is death, then you must be brought, like these
two disciples, to stand still and behold the Lamb of God. Your life is ticking away day
by day, hour by hour, week by week, month by month, year by
year, until that day when death, the consequence of your sin,
comes and puts its hand upon your shoulder and leads you and
takes you the other side of the grave to stand before Almighty
God. You need an answer for your sin. You need an answer for the fact
that death will come your way one day. You need to stand in
eternity. And the only way that you or
I will stand before a holy God, we'll have an answer to a holy
God. will have an answer for our sin
and our guilt and our corruption the only way that we will be
spared the wrath to come which our sin merits and our rebellion
and our unbelief and our apathy and our rejection of Christ merits
the only way that we will be spared the sure and the certain
consequence of our sins is if God in the gospel brings us to
a place where we're brought to stand still before Him and where
a preacher like John says unto us by the Spirit of God, behold
the Lamb of God. They stood You will never see
or hear Christ until you're brought to stand. Until you're brought
to stand still. until you cease to walk in your
pathway whatever pathway it may be a pathway of seeking out your
own ambitions or your own glory or your own desires or lusts
in this world or a pathway of seeking to build up your own
works in religion I don't care what sort of pathway it is wherever
you are heading, whatever you're doing, you will not behold the
Lamb of God until you're brought to stand still. When God brought
the children of Israel out of captivity in Egypt by the hand
of Moses, they were pursued by the Egyptians and they came and
they found the Red Sea ahead of them. They could not return
because the pursuing Egyptians came and under them they'd meet
certain death. They could not go forward because
the Red Sea blocked their way. They had nowhere to go. They
were trapped and the minutes were ticking by. But Moses stood
and said unto them, stand still and see the salvation of the
Lord. perhaps you don't know where
to go perhaps you don't know what to do you want to go into
the world to make your own glory to fulfill your own ambitions
to feather your own nest you want to indulge in this or that
you want to pursue this or that but you know You know deep down
where it will lead. You know that your life is brief. You know that you will die. You
know that there is eternity which awakes and a God before whom
you must answer. But you don't know how to get
to a place where you have an answer. You know you need the
gospel. You know you need the blood of
Christ. but you find yourself trapped. There's a red sea in front of
you and there are pursuing Egyptians behind you and you don't know
where to go. Well stand still. Striving to make yourself right
before God, striving to be religious, striving to do the right thing
in your own strength won't get you anywhere. It will give you
much that you can glory in yourself with all your works. You can
come before God and say, well I've done this and I've done
that. I've read the scriptures, I've prayed daily, I've worshipped
regularly. I try to do good to my fellow
man. Surely God will receive me. But
He'll look at your works of righteousness and He'll say they're filthy
rags of self-righteousness. All they do is bring pride to
your name. All they are are that in which
you can glory and that which you can plea. But they're not
good enough. Before a holy law, before the
righteousness of God, they're corrupt. They're full of self-interest
and self-glory. They won't do. Then stand still
and stop striving to get to heaven. and to make yourself righteous
by your own deeds and your own will. You can't do it. The more
you strive, the worse you get. The more you try to live good,
the worse you get. The more you sin, the more you
fall into sin, the more in secret you find yourself thinking this
and doing this and saying that, and you can hide it from everyone,
but God sees. God knows what your fellow man
can't see, what you keep hidden away. God knows what's racing
through your mind every day, which everybody else knows nothing
of but God does. And before him you find yourself
trapped with Egyptians pursuing and a Red Sea before you. Don't
play the fool with Almighty God. You can hide it from other men,
you can hide it from me, but you can't hide from God. again the next day after John
stood and two of his disciples maybe like the prodigal son you
will race off into the world taking all your inheritance taking
all the money you've got and you'll spend it on this that
and the other but it will come to nothing and there will be
a day that comes when you've spent everything you've got and
it's brought you no pleasure no joy and your life has passed
you by your life has passed you by and eternity awaits stand
stand still stand still and see the salvation of the lord the
next day after john stood and two of his disciples until you
stand Until God brings you to stand and stops you in your mad
career into sin and rebellion and destruction, until he stops
you in your tracks, you will never hear and see the salvation
of the Lord. But these two were brought to
stand. And looking upon Jesus as he
walked, John saith, Behold the Lamb of God. Looking upon Jesus
as he walked, John saith, Behold the Lamb of God. They looked
upon Jesus. And Jesus, as they stood, walked. They stopped working. and they beheld the work and
the person of Jesus Christ. They saw what Christ did for
them, and they saw who Christ was. They saw the person and
the work of Jesus Christ. They saw, as it were, in the
gospel who Christ is. They beheld the Lamb of God. This is the only thing that we
as sinners who are saved are called to do. What is the believer
called to do? What is the believer's walk? What are we exhorted to do in
this world? We're exhorted to stand and behold
the Lamb of God. It's the only true exhortation
that believers need. Every other exhortation in the
whole of scripture, wherever it is and wherever it concerns,
every exhortation to a believer to do this or do that or do the
other, is all with this one end in mind. It's simply that the
church, the people of God, might be put in a place where Christ
is preached in the gospel and they hear that gospel and they
behold Him. Every exhortation in the New
Testament epistles to the churches is designed to create peace and
unity in the churches such that the gospel might be preached
and the people might stand still and behold. Constantly in Galatians
and other books, Paul wrote that they should turn from their works
and stand in the liberty wherewith Christ had made them free. That
salvation is in the grace of God. He reminds them to stop
working, to stop striving, to stop walking around in their
own strength and to stand still and behold the Lamb of God. The exhortations purely bring
you to this point. The only thing for us to do,
the only reason we remain in this world is to see and behold
the glory of God in the person of Jesus Christ, is to behold
the Lamb of God. People speak of a believer's
walk. They speak of what we should
do, how we should live, what we should turn from, what we
should avoid, what we should be thinking, what we should be
doing, how we should be dressing. But all we are truly called to
do and all that matters is to behold the Lamb of God in the
Gospel. To behold Christ and Him crucified
and beholding him to witness of him. John stood and spoke. The next day after John stood
and two of his disciples and looking upon Jesus as he walked,
John saith, Behold the Lamb of God. In a few verses we have
the work of the gospel, we have the person of Jesus Christ, the
Lamb of God, we have believers standing still and looking and
we have John witnessing and pointing to them and saying, look, behold
the Lamb of God and they heard him and they followed Jesus. John witnessed. Why are we here
in this world? To see and know Christ and to
tell others of Him. Why am I here this day? To see
and know Christ and to tell you of Him. Behold the Lamb of God. Behold the Lamb of God. See Him. Hear Him. Know Him. That's all the thief
on the cross really did. The thief that hung dying on
the cross. Christ spake unto him and said,
today you will be with me in paradise. His life as a believer
from that point on consisted of no more than hanging on that
cross for those hours, hearing and beholding the Saviour, believing
on him. until that point when the thief,
too, breathed his last breath and entered eternity. He had
no time to go about doing this or that. He had no time to concentrate
on trying to live like this or do that or the other. His whole
experience as a believer was to hear Christ and behold Him,
the Lamb of God, crucified beside Him. And that is exactly what
we as believers do also. We are as it were thieves on
a cross. We are crucified with Christ. As Paul says, I am crucified
with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth
in me. And the life which I now live
in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me
and gave himself for me. He was crucified with Christ.
We as believers are crucified with Christ. We, as it were,
hang there on the cross with him. And all we are and all we
do as believers is to see him, our Savior. All that we do in
the flesh is crucified and judged in Christ. We're slain with Christ. We die with Christ. Our life
is Christ. All we are in this world are
those who have died with Christ, who have risen with Christ, and
who are brought by faith to behold Him. to hear him there's no other
exhortation that you need beyond behold the lamb of god hear the
gospel see christ in the gospel believe the gospel and live forevermore
if you shut your ears to the gospel if you reject the gospel
if you turn aside from the gospel you will die forevermore It's
as clear as that. Nothing in this world, nothing
in life, nothing in history has any other meaning or relevance
or importance. This whole world exists for this
one question, this one point. Christ hung upon the cross. and
you either hung there as a thief with him, being crucified with
Christ, your sins judged in him, and behold in him as your Savior. or you hung there as that other
thief on the other side who railed at Christ and rejected Christ
and who never believed, who passed from this world into eternal
wrath and judgment. Everything comes to this point
and this point alone. Behold the Lamb of God. But what made the difference
between the thief on one side of Christ and the thief on the
other side of Christ? And what made the difference
between these two disciples who heard John and those Pharisees
who came to John and went back to their people and sought ultimately
to crucify Christ? What made the difference between
those who heard and followed Jesus and those whom Jesus came
unto his own who received him not? What made the difference
was that God caused one to believe and left the others in their
unbelief. God gave unto these two disciples faith and the others
were left in the darkness of their sin. You can't see what
you can't see. I can point you in the Gospel. I can exhort you with the words
of Holy Scripture. I can say, behold the Lamb of
God. But if you can't see Him, you
can't see a thing. These two disciples stood and
they looked upon Jesus as He walked and He said, Behold the
Lamb of God. And they heard John and they
saw Jesus and they followed Jesus. They saw Him. But they didn't
just see with the physical eye, they saw by faith. They knew
who he was and they followed him. And I can say unto you,
behold the Lamb of God. But if you can't see who he is,
if you don't comprehend who he is, if you refuse to believe
who he is, If you reject the testimony, reject the truth,
reject the word and choose to remain in darkness. Choose to
follow sin. Choose to race towards the grave,
shutting your ears to the gospel. If that's your decision, if that's
your pathway, if that's where you walk, then you will remain
dead. And you will die forevermore. You need faith to see. Your eyes need to be opened. You need the faith of Jesus Christ. this one who went to the cross
and by faith suffered and died in the darkness for sinners.
Christ who by faith went into the abyss of the darkness when
God laid upon him the sins of his people and the sin of the
world and he was judged and felt the fires of God's wrath come
down upon him he went into the darkness because he believed
that God would bring him through the darkness he'd bring him through
the fires he'd bring him through the storms of his wrath and he'd
bring him out the other side with his people with that faith
and lead them into paradise he went that way by faith And we,
when we sit in the darkness as we do here below, and we hear
of Christ in the Gospel, we need the same faith to look through
the darkness to the other side and to see the light in the Gospel
shining from the face of Jesus Christ. We need faith. Behold the Lamb of God I say
unto you, But has God given you the faith to see Him? To see
Him! To see the Lamb of God! And looking upon Jesus as He
walked, John saith, Behold the Lamb of God! What is it that
John pointed them to? Who is it that John pointed them
to? The Lamb of God. They saw Jesus,
they knew, they saw this man. If they knew who he was in an
earthly sense, they'd have known he's Jesus of Nazareth, the son
of Joseph the carpenter. But John declares who he is. Behold the Lamb of God. And in these words we see both
who Jesus is and what Jesus did. Who He is and what He did. He's God's Lamb. He's the Lamb
of God. He's the sacrifice that God sent
into this world for our sins. The Lamb of God. And as the sacrifice, They saw
in Him what He did, because this Lamb took their sins upon Him
and was slain, was crucified upon the cross. as their sacrifice
to take away their sins, to wash them clean in His blood. They'd
seen sacrifices, they knew what sacrifices were sacrificed for,
they knew what the priesthood was about, they knew why sacrifices
were offered up daily in the temples. Sacrifices were slain,
lambs were slain as a picture of the one sacrifice that God
would send to deliver his people from their sins. Lambs were slain,
bulls and goats were slain, blood was shed to picture the washing
away of sin. And here, John says, but all
of those are but pictures of him. Behold, the Lamb of God. Here He is. God as a man. God the priest. God the prophet
and king. God the sacrifice. Jesus, the Lamb of God. They saw their Saviour. They saw He who would die in
their place. and they believed. And the two
disciples heard him speak and they followed Jesus. They needed faith to see. They needed faith to believe. They needed faith to hear. Here we see the hearing of faith. The two disciples heard him speak. They heard the witness of the
preacher. They heard the gospel. They heard
the testimony. Behold the Lamb of God. They
heard. And they believed. Faith heard. And faith believed. and they
followed Jesus. Have you heard the gospel? Have
you heard the preacher's testimony? Has God given you faith to believe
and to follow Jesus? Faith works. True faith is manifested
by the works of faith. They heard and they followed. They followed Jesus. But what
was it for them to follow Jesus? Again, people speak of the walk
and the life of faith. They speak of what believers
should and shouldn't do. They speak of following Jesus
and they read into the following of Jesus all sorts of things
that you should be doing or all sorts of things you should be
avoiding. But to follow Jesus as faith does is to go where
he is, to hear him speak and to behold him. They followed
Jesus because that's how they continued to behold the Lamb
of God. That's how they continued to
hear the Gospel. That's how they continued to
be where the Saviour was. They went where He was. This
is what following Jesus is. It's not doing this and doing
that it's not the amount of prayer you make it's not the amount
of reading you do it's not the amount of good works you do it's
not the amount of good to your neighbor you do all these things
may be there as well you may and will read the scriptures. You may and you will pray often. You may and you will worship.
You may and you will be kind to your neighbor. But ultimately
following Jesus from whence everything else flows is to go where he
is and to hear his voice. It's to go where the gospel's
preached. and to hear His voice in the
Gospel. And under the Gospel and under
the voice of the Spirit of God, you will behold the Lamb of God. They beheld. And they didn't
want to stop seeing Him. They wanted to be where He was
and behold Him forevermore. They wanted to follow Him wherever
He went. And if He left this world and
went to glory, they wanted to go with Him. They followed him
and they heard him. They heard every word that he
said. They treasured every word that
he said. They wanted to hear the voice
of Jesus Christ. They wanted to hear his gospel.
They treated it as their meat and drink. This was more important
to them than any physical meat or drink. This was more important
to them than anything concerning their life here below. To know
Christ. to walk with Christ, to hear
Christ, to believe Christ, to eat and drink of His flesh and
of His blood. They wanted Christ. As Paul said,
for me to live is Christ and to die is gain. He was their
all. And O believer, if you want to
follow Jesus, if you want to know His will for your life,
If you want to know the power of God in salvation, it is to
behold the Lamb of God in the Gospel. Being where Jesus is,
following Him, hearing Him, believing Him, what we need today more
than any of anything else is the Gospel, the power of God
under salvation. Have you been brought to stand
still. Have you been brought to look
upon Jesus? Have you been brought, here in
the Gospel, to follow Him? 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.