I'm going to be speaking today
from the first chapter of John's Gospel. My subject is, Behold
the Lamb of God. And I'll be dealing with several
of these verses in John chapter 1, if you'd like to take your
Bible and open it to that chapter. Behold the Lamb of God. Now,
here's my text. John 1 verse 29. The next day, John the Baptist seeth Jesus
coming unto him, and he said, Behold the Lamb of God that taketh
away the sin of the world. Now John the Baptist is called
by many writers the last of the Old Testament prophets. You know,
the Old Testament prophets bore witness to Christ. All of the
prophets spake of him. And John was the last of these
Old Testament prophets. Isaiah wrote about John in chapter
40. He said, And then Malachi. Malachi,
the last book in the Old Testament. And in chapter 3, Malachi wrote about the coming of John
the Baptist, the forerunner of Christ, the messenger who came
before the Savior, the Messiah. And Malachi said in chapter 3,
verse 1, Behold, the Lord said, I will send my messenger, and
he shall prepare the way before me. And the Messiah, the Lord
whom you seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the
messenger of the covenant. Behold, he shall come, saith
the Lord God." Before the messenger of the covenant, the Messiah,
comes to his temple, John the Baptist, the messenger, the forerunner,
comes and announces the coming King. And in this first chapter
of John, now I'll let you look at a few verses, John the Baptist
bore a sevenfold witness to the excellency and glory of our Lord
Jesus Christ. In other words, John tells us
who he is. Who is the Messiah? Who is this
Lamb of God? Look at verse 15. John bear witness,
I'm reading from John 1 verse 15. John bear witness of him
saying, this is he of whom I speak. The Lord is coming to prepare
you the way of the Lord. He that cometh after me is preferred
before me, for he was before me. Now, John the Baptist was
born six months before Jesus of Nazareth was born, and yet
he says, he was before me. That's right. Actually, he's
before all things. John, the apostle, wrote, In
the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the
Word was God, and all things were made by Him. So John says,
He came after me. He was born after I was born.
But He was before me, long before me. That's what Micah said in
chapter 5, verse 2, writing about the birth of the Lord in Bethlehem. He said, The one born in Bethlehem,
is the one whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting."
Our Lord is before all things except the Father. All things
were made by Him. In Proverbs 8.23, you know, I've
told you two or three times on this broadcast to read the eighth
chapter of Proverbs. It's all about our Lord who's
called the wisdom of God. But He says in Proverbs 8.23,
I was set up from everlasting. from the beginning, or ever the
earth was. Yes, John said, Jesus Christ
is before me. He's before the earth. He's before
time. He was with God and was God,
and all things were made by him. All right, look at verse 23 now.
He's not only, John said, before me, but he says in verse 23,
he's the Lord. He said in verse 23, I'm a voice.
I'm a voice." They said, who are you? He said, just a voice,
a voice in the wilderness, crying, make straight the way of the
Lord. I'm a voice. He's the Lord. When
Saul of Tarsus, on his way to Damascus, met the Lord, when
he was stricken, smitten blind, and fell to the ground, and a
voice from heaven spake to him, and said this, Saul, Saul, why
persecutest thou me? And what did Saul ask? He said,
who art thou, Lord? Who art thou, Lord? And the voice
said, I am Jesus, whom thou persecutest. Yes, who art thou, Lord? He's
God. Jesus and the Father in heaven
are one. I and my Father are one. I cannot
explain the Trinity. I'm not even going to attempt
to. But I know there are three that bear record in heaven. There's
the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost, and the Scripture
says these three are one. And Christ said, I and my Father
are one. Isaiah said this, under us a
child is born, under us a son is given, and the government's
on his shoulders. And His name, now listen, His
name, this child born to Mary, His name is Wonderful, Counselor,
the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.
Christ said, He that's seen me has seen my Father. I and my
Father are one. And Paul wrote in 1 Timothy 3,
Great is the mystery of godliness. God was manifest in the flesh. Call His name Emmanuel. God with
us, and God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself. John
said, He was before me. And then he said, He's the Lord
God. And then look at verse 27. And
he says, This Lamb of God, our Redeemer, is superior over all. Listen to what he says in verse
27. He, it is, who coming after me is preferred
before me, whose shoes, whose sandals I'm not worthy to unloose."
I'm not worthy to stoop down and loosen his sandals. He is
superior to all, more excellent than every name. God has given
him a name above every name, above every name, and it's the
name of Jesus. Every knee will bow in heaven,
in earth, and under the earth. And every tongue confess, he's
the Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Paul declared in
Hebrews, he's more excellent than the angels. He's more excellent
and greater than Moses, and the prophets, and the priests. And
listen to the Father. He said, unto the angels, saith
the Father, let all the angels of God worship Him. All the angels of God worship
Him. And under the sun, right there
in that same chapter of Hebrews, under the sun He saith, Thy throne,
O God, is forever. Yes, He's before all things,
He's the Lord, and He's superior, that He might have the preeminence. Now watch this, verse 32, And
He is holiness, Jesus Christ is holiness and righteousness
personified. John, bear record, verse 32,
let me read it. John, bear record, saying, I
saw the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit, descending from heaven
like a dove, and He, the Holy Spirit of God, abode on Him. For He whom the Father hath sent,
John chapter 3, listen to this, For he whom the Father hath sent
speaks the very words of God. For God giveth not the Spirit
by measure unto him, not limited, but he has the Spirit of the
living God totally, completely. In fact, the very Spirit of God,
the Holy Spirit of God, is also called the Spirit of Christ,
the Spirit of holiness. Our Lord is immaculate, immutable,
infinite, holiness personified. That's right. All right. Now
look at verse 33. And John says he has all power
in heaven and earth. In verse 33, it says John declared
this, unto whom you see the Spirit descend and remaining on him,
he it is, He it is who baptizes with the Holy Ghost. In other
words, He's the giver of life. He's the giver of life. The Son
quickeneth whom He will. The old preachers used to call
that the divine crown rites of Christ Jesus. That's His crown
rites. He is Lord by divine purpose. God says, I set my King on the
holy hill of Zion. He's Lord by divine purpose. And then secondly, he's Lord
by divine decree. God the Father said, sit thou
at my right hand until I make all your enemies your footstool. And then he is Lord, sovereign
over all, life giver, King of kings, Lord of lords by death.
He purchased those crown rights. That's what the old timers used
to call it, his crown rights. He said, Father, You've given
me power over all flesh, that I should give eternal life to
as many as thou hast given me. As the Father hath life in himself,
so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself. That's
right. To this end, Jesus Christ both
died and rose again, that he might be Lord, listen, of the
dead and the living. And when he sent his disciples
out to preach, he said, Now you go, remembering this, all authority,
all power is given to me in heaven and earth. Go ye therefore and
preach the gospel. All right, look at verse 34.
John bears witness to Christ Jesus, who he is. He says in
verse 34, And I saw and bear record that this is the Son of
God. Now, there are many sons of God.
John wrote in his epistle, the apostle John wrote over there
in 1 John, he said in chapter 3, Behold what manner of love
the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called
sons of God. Now are we sons of God. So there
are many sons of God, but there's only one eternal, omnipotent,
only begotten Son of God." And that's the Lord Jesus Christ.
And I saw, John said, and bear record, this is none other than
the Son of God. Listen to what Paul wrote about
Him in Hebrews 1, verse 2 and 3. God hath in these last days
spoken to us by His Son, Jesus Christ, whom He hath appointed
heir of all things, by whom He made the worlds, who is the brightness
of His glory, who is the exact image of His person, who upholds
all things by the word of His power. When He had, by Himself,
purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of God. This is
the record. God has given us eternal life,
and this life eternal. is in His Son, His one and only
begotten Son, the Son of His love. John seeing Jesus coming
to him. Now, here's the seventh witness.
Verse 29. I'm coming back to verse 29 in
my text. John seeing Jesus of Nazareth
coming to him, and he declared, had two disciples of his disciples
there with him. He declared, he said, Behold
the Lamb of God. the Lamb of God, Son of God,
holiness personified, before all things, Creator, but the
Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world. Several
years ago, a young married man living in this area, in our television
area, became troubled over his sinful nature. He became troubled
over the fact that he didn't know God. He became troubled
over the fact that he's appointed unto me and wants to die, and
after that, to judgment. And he certainly wasn't ready
to die and wasn't ready to meet God to judgment. He was a great
and sinful man. So he brought him a Bible. He
told his wife, he said, I'm going to study this Bible. Somewhere
in this Bible, it tells a man how he can be saved. And I'm
going to start on page one, and I'm going to read this Bible
until I find out how man can be forgiven and come to God.
And so after he read through Genesis and Exodus and Leviticus
and Numbers and Deuteronomy, the first five books of the Old
Testament, the writings of Moses, he came to his wife. He said,
I know now. I know. He said, honey, if a
man is to come to God, If a man is going to find forgiveness
of sins, if a man is going to worship God and God receive him,
he must have a lamb. He got to have a lamb. All of
these people who came to God brought a lamb and slew the lamb
and shed its blood and made an offering to God. That young man
was exactly right. Everybody who comes to God, who's
forgiven of God, whom God receives has got to have a lamb. And that's
what John is saying about Christ. He said, Behold the Lamb of God
that taketh away the sin of the world. The high priest went into
the Holy of Holies once a year to make atonement. But the Scripture
says, Not without blood. Not without blood. You don't
come before God without blood. Without the shedding of blood,
there's no remission. There's no forgiveness. Abel
had to have a lamb. Abraham, the father of the faithful,
had to have a lamb. Moses had to have a lamb. Israel
had to have a Passover lamb. The high priest had to have a
lamb. And let me tell you something. If you're going to deal with
God in grace and mercy, you've got to have a lamb. I've got
to have a lamb. And that's what John's telling
us. He's the Lamb of God. This is the message of the entire
Bible. Jesus Christ is the Lamb of God. He's the Lamb promised. He's the Lamb prophesied. He's
the Lamb pictured throughout the whole Old Testament. And
then when God sent the forerunner, and the forerunner gave this
sevenfold witness of who Jesus Christ is, He said primarily,
He's the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world. Now
let's look in the Old Testament. and see how that Lamb of God
is revealed. Everybody had a lamb. Now here's
two brothers over in Genesis 4. Chapter 4, verse 3 and 4. Two brothers, Cain and Abel.
And these two brothers came to worship God. They both built
an altar. They both came to worship God.
And Cain, the older brother, brought the fruit of the ground.
He was a farmer. So he brought all the things
that he had grown and raised and brought them to God and presented
them as his sacrifice, as his offering to God. Well, Abel,
the younger brother, brought a lamb. He slew the lamb, roasted
it with fire, took the blood, put it on the altar, and God
received his sacrifice. God received his lamb. God received
his offering and rejected Cain's offering. Now then, why did God
accept Abel's offering and reject and refuse Cain's offering? He
accepted the blood, but he refused the works of the flesh. And I'll
tell you why. Abel's offering was by faith.
By faith, Abel offered a more excellent sacrifice than Cain.
He did what he was told to do. He came through the blood. Secondly,
Abel's offering declared this. My sins deserve death. The scripture
says the soul that sinneth, it'll die. The wages of sin is death.
And Abel says, I agree with that. This lamb is dying, picturing
what I should do, and that's die for my sins. But he's dying
in my place. So he brought the blood. Thirdly,
Abel was declaring this. I'm looking not to this animal,
and it's blood because an animal's blood won't atone for a man's
sins. They're different natures. But
I'm looking. I'm bringing this lamb and looking
to the coming lamb of God who will take away my sin. I'm looking
to the one whom this lamb represents by faith. That's where all those
Old Testament people... And then fourthly, Abel's offering
justified God's judgment against sin. He said, God, you're right
to punish sin. You're right to require God must
punish sin, and that's what the sacrifice of the Lamb is saying. I agree by faith with God's wrath
against sin. I ought to die, but I can't die
and be saved, so somebody has to die for me. Behold the Lamb
of God that taketh away the sin of the world. Well, what about
Abraham, father of the faithful? One day God said, Abraham, Take
thy son, thine only son, whom thou lovest, to mount," to the
mountain, I'll show you, Mount Morales is where it was, and
you sacrifice there, you sacrifice him as a blood burnt offering
to me. And the way you sacrifice these
burnt offerings is you put the lamb's body on the altar and
you burn it, you roast it, you divide it into four parts and
roast it before God and you take the blood with hyssop and sprinkle
it on the altar. And so Abraham, Took his son,
gathered the wood, got some young men who worked for him to help
him, and they started a three-day journey. And finally they came
to the base of that mountain, Mount Moriah. And Abraham said
to the young men with him, said, you men stay here, the lad and
I'll go yonder and worship God and we'll be back. Abraham believed
that God, if he allowed him to sacrifice Isaac, that he'd raise
him from the dead. because he promised Abraham in
Isaac, thy seed will be called. So he said, we'll be back. So
he started up the mountain and Isaac was walking along beside
him. Isaac's a pretty good-sized young man. And he was carrying
the wood for the altar and carrying the fire. They had the fire on
a stick then with some kind of oil that burned. And the young
man said to his father, he said, Father, here's the wood, here's
the fire, where's the lamb? Isaac knew, I know, You know,
without the shedding of blood, there's no remission. Without
a lamb, you don't come to God. And then Abraham uttered those
mighty words, My son, My son, God will provide himself a lamb. God will provide. Jehovah-Jireh,
that's one of the seven names of our Lord. God will provide.
God will see to it. My son, God will provide himself
a lamb. He's saying three things there.
God will provide the Lamb, and He did. Jesus Christ is His Son.
He sent His Son into the world to redeem us. God provided the
Lamb. And God will Himself be the Lamb. God will provide Himself the
Lamb. He is the Lamb. God was in Christ
reconciling the world to Himself. And then He said, God will provide
for Himself a Lamb. That Lamb died to reconcile God. You see, Christ didn't die, shed
his blood toward us. It was toward the Father, to
pay a debt, to satisfy justice, to honor the law. He died. Every
Old Testament sacrifice was before the Lord, unto the Lord. So God
provided himself. And that's what happened on that
mountain. He raised the knife to slay his son, and God said,
Abraham, don't touch the lad. He looked behind him, and there
was a ram caught by his horns in the thicket. And Abraham took
Isaac off the altar and put the ram in his place, and he died
in the stead of Isaac. And that's the way Christ died
in our stead. Now, what about the blood in
Egypt? Israel was in Egypt, been there
400 years, and God raised up Moses to deliver them from Egypt,
but not without blood. There's no redemption without
blood. There's no deliverance without blood. You can't go from
Egypt to Canaan without the shedding of blood. So God said, Moses,
take a lamb. Take a lamb, the first thing
of the flock. It's got to be a young lamb in
the prime of life. Secondly, without spot or blemish,
it's got to be perfect. Take that lamb, set it, keep
it up for four days to make sure it's got no mark or blemish or
disease, and then kill it. roast it with fire, eat the lamb,
and sprinkle the blood on the door by faith. And when I see
the blood, I'll pass over you." Christ Jesus is the firstborn,
the firstling of the flock. He was without spot or blemish.
He was slain on Calvary and roasted under the wrath of God. And we
eat his flesh and drink his blood. That's right. He said, this is
my blood. shed for you. Drink ye all of it in tithe and
picture. This is my body broken for you.
Take and eat." Our Lord Jesus Christ shed His blood and God
said, by faith you apply it. Those Israelites put it on the
door by faith and they went in the house and shut the door and
God passed over. And that's what we do. We receive
the blood by faith. And then in Isaiah 53, it tells
us the lamb is going to be a man. The Lamb is typified. The Lamb
is personified as a man, Jesus Christ. Here's the fulfillment. He was wounded for our transgressions.
He was bruised for our iniquities. Transgression of our sins were
upon Him. By stripes we're healed. A man
is God's Lamb. And then the Lamb of God is identified
here by John. There He is, the Lamb of God
that taketh away the sin of the world. And the Lamb was crucified.
on the cross. And my friends, the Lamb is glorified. He's exalted to God's right hand. And listen to what the Scripture
says in Revelation 5, And I beheld, and low in the midst of the throne
stood a Lamb, as it had been slain, having seven horns, omnipotent,
have seven eyes, omniscient, all-seeing, seven spirits, omnipresent. And he came and took the book
from the right hand of him that sat on the throne, And when he'd
taken the book, they all fell down. Every voice in heaven sang
a new song. Thou art worthy to take the book,
to open the seals, for thou was slain and has redeemed us to
God out of every kindred, tongue, people, and nation, and made
us kings and priests unto our God. Every man coming to God
must have a lamb. Must have a lamb. Thank God. This sinner has a lamb. Behold,
the Lamb of God taketh away the sin of the world." Now, if you
want this tape, cassette tape, audio tape, the Lamb of God,
write for it. We'll mail it to you. There'll
be another one on the other side, another message I'll preach next
week on the Lord's My Shepherd. All right, till next week, may
God bless you, everyone.