in our Savior's precious name. Now let's take the Word of God and turn to John chapter 1. John chapter 1. It was not my intention to preach on this particular Behold on this Lord's Day. I had finished off this Behold on Thursday, but it wasn't my intention to preach it. And then I came to the men's prayer meeting and somebody prayed it, and then I went home and I was reading my own devotional by William Jay, the Reverend William Jay, and this particular behold was in that reading. And so I took it as the leading of the Lord that I would set aside what I intended to preach and go with what I had prepared. And so we're going to consider what we find here in John chapter number one, and we're beginning our reading at the verse 19. So it's the 19th verse, of the first chapter of John's Gospel. And it says, and this is the record of John, when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, who art thou? And he confessed and denied not, but confessed, I am not the Christ. And they asked him, what then? Art thou Elias? And he saith, I am not. Art thou that prophet? And he answered, no. Then said they 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 Elias. 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 coming after me is preferred before me, whose shoes latcheth I am not worthy to unloose. These things were done in Bethabara beyond Jordan. where John was baptizing. The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto them, 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. 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 I shall see the Spirit descending and remaining on him, the same as he which baptizes with the Holy Ghost. And I saw, and bear record, that this is the Son of God. Again, the next day after John stood, the 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. Amen, and we'll end at verse 37, the public reading of God's Word. Let's unite, please, in a brief word of prayer. Our loving Father, we thank Thee for the congregating of Thy people. And now, Lord, we come to behold Thee again, and oh, for a fresh view of our Savior, Him whom our soul loveth. Oh, to get a view of him, even if it be where but through the lattice. As the one in the song of Solomon, she only but was able to discern his shadow, his silhouette, as it were, through the lattice. And yet it was enough, dear God, to cause the emotion of love to spring up within her soul, love for her beloved. Oh, grant, dear God, even if it is but As it were, through the glass darkly, may we still behold our Saviour. May a glimpse of Him, O may it cause the fires of love to burn brightly within these souls of ours. Bless all we cry to Thee, and grant now the infilling of Thy Spirit. For the preaching of the Word, we offer prayer in and through the Saviour's precious and worthy name. Amen. Thomas Manton, the great 17th century English Puritan wrote, there is a threefold behold in Scripture. There is the behold of demonstration. There is the behold of admiration. And there is the behold of gratulation. The behold that we will consider today incorporates all of the above. It is a behold of demonstration. It is a behold of admiration and it is a behold of congratulation or a behold of that which brings joy. It is probably the best behold in all of Scripture. And it was uttered by a rough, unpolished, spirit-filled firebrand of a preacher. On the banks of the river Jordan, John the Baptist uttered these words as he saw the approaching Christ. Behold the Lamb of God. which taketh away the sin of the world." John the Baptist's words that day really signaled the beginning of the end of his own ministry and the commencement of the Savior's public ministry. John, aware that his propriety work as the forerunner of the Messiah was nearing now an end, desired all eyes to be taken from him and fixed upon the one whom he had been sent to prepare the way for. the Lord Jesus Christ. As John the Baptist feeds into the background, having told all to behold the Lamb of God, the Lord Jesus Christ is left now center stage with all eyes transfixed on him. That's the way that it ought to always be when any man comes to preach, that Jesus Christ is left center stage. That none is saved, seen, save Jesus only. That the preacher preaches none else but Christ and Him crucified. That he preaches not himself, but Jesus Christ the Lord. John did his work. He got everyone to focus onto the Lamb of God. And today we simply want to do what John encourages his congregation to do on two occasions. We want to behold the Lamb. Behold the Lamb. Now there are a number of ways that we can behold the Lamb of God. Can I say in the first instance, I want us to behold the Lamb of God prophetically. Behold the Lamb of God prophetically. The arrival of God's Lamb onto the stage of human history would not have been a surprise for those who were acquainted with the Old Testament Scriptures. I say that because as God progressively revealed Himself and His purposes to man in Old Testament times, there were occasions that He did give glimpses to the fact that the One who was coming to be the Messiah was going to be a Lamb. He was going to be a Lamb. Let me give you a few illustrations or a few portions of God's Word to evidence and to prove that that is the case. The first portion I want you to turn to is way back there in Genesis and the chapter number four. Genesis and the chapter number four. You'll all recount what is occurring here. This account in Genesis chapter four, two brothers come before God to present their offerings to God. The older brother Cain, who is a tiller off the ground, brought his offering to God. We read that that offering consisted of the fruit of the ground. The younger brother Abel, who was a keeper of the sheep, according to the verse number two, he brings a different offering. He brings the firstlings of his flock. and they're off in the verse number four we read those words. Now verse four and then into verse five informs us about what God thought of the two offerings. It says, and the Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering, but unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect. There was something in Abel's offering that won the respect. that won the admiration, that won the approval of Jehovah, the true and the living God. And I believe that the thing that won God's favor and won God's respect and won His approval was what Abel offered on to God. You see, Abel offered up a slain lamb, a slain lamb that pointed to a coming lamb who would offer himself as a sacrifice for sin, a sacrifice that would be of greater and of infinite worth. God was signaling here. very early on in human history, that it was going to be through a slain lamb, a slain lamb that favor with God could be obtained. You see, this lamb, Abel's lamb, was a picture, a shadow, an illustration, a type of a coming lamb, Christ, the Lamb of God, who would come into the world, and by the sacrifice of himself, he would put away and he would take away sin. by the sharing of His blood and by the redemption that He secured. The second Old Testament passage is in the same book, this time chapter 22 of the book of Genesis. Again, we know the story. I want you to watch as a father and a son climb to a secluded spot on Mount Moriah. I want you to envisage the wood as it's placed upon the back of the boy. Then I want you to see the fire and the knife in the hand of the father. And then I want us to eavesdrop into their conversation as they steadily progress upwards towards the place that God had appointed. Listen into their conversation. Isaac is the first to speak. My father, he said. Behold the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb? Verse seven, where is the lamb for a burnt offering? Where is the lamb, the lamb? Abraham replies in the verse number eight, he said, my son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering. Content with that response, we're told that they went, both of them, together. And they came to the place which God had told them of. We know what happens. Abraham takes his son and he binds him with cords, with rope, most likely, he binds his son. And then he places that son, his beloved son, his much-loved son. He places that son upon the altar. Abraham takes the knife and is about to plunge it into the very heart of his own son, when he hears a voice out of heaven, Abraham, Abraham, God says, lay not thy hand upon the lad. Neither do thou anything unto him, for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy Son, thine only Son, from me. But a sacrifice still needs to be offered. And God provides. He provides a sacrifice. I want you to notice that he does not provide a ewe. He doesn't provide a female sheep. No, rather he provides a ram, a male sheep. You see, there's something progressive happening here. To Abraham and to Cain, it was simply it had to be a lamb, one out of the flock. But to Abraham, there is a progression here. It's not simply to be any sheep. It's not to be a ewe lamb, but rather it's to be a lamb. It's to be a meal. It's to be a meal out of the flock that I want you to offer. And sure enough, There we see that ram caught with its horns in the thicket. A picture of Calvary and our Savior there crowned with thorns on Calvary's hillside. And Abraham, he takes the ram and he places it on the altar. And notice what it says in the verse 13. He places him and he offers him up for a burnt offering in the stead of his son. Here we have the thought of a substitute A male substitute, a lamb, a male lamb who is going to be a substitute, who is going to die in the place of another. And because another dies in the place, the son goes free. God is pleased. In this we see, we see a picture of Calvary. We see a picture of the coming Lamb. What do we not read in the days of our Lord Jesus Christ and his earthly ministry? He said this about Abraham, Abraham rejoiced to see my day. Where did he see Christ's day? He saw Christ's day on Mount Moriah. where the ram would be slain and the blood would be shed. Abraham looked towards the coming lamb of God. Prophetically, we view him there in Genesis and the chapter 22. Exodus chapter 12 is the next Old Testament passage. These are familiar to us, great events in Jewish history and in the history of the world. Exodus chapter 12, the Lamb of God, again prophetically seen, that singular, that separated, that spotless, that slain, that substitutionary Lamb that we read off in Exodus chapter 12, became the means by which life was preserved as death marched through the land of Egypt on Passover night. All who sheltered beneath the blood of the Lamb was spared death. In this we surely again see Christ, the Lamb of God. what He was going to accomplish for us when He died on the cross. You see, whilst the Lord Jesus Christ was slain, and judgment fell upon Him as the sacrifice on Calvary's cross, we who trust in Him are spared eternal death. We have sheltered ourselves neath the blood of the Lamb, and so there is the pointing again, the Lamb, the central object in Old Testament history. You think about the Levitical priesthood, the sacrifices that were offered. Think of the daily sacrifices. What was to be offered in the morning? What was to be offered in the evening? A lamb. Every day, two lambs shed, a lamb. We think about the different offerings, the sin offering, the trespass offering. Many of the offerings that we have recorded in the Scriptures, they involve the slaying of a lamb. Isn't it interesting? The animal doesn't change, but rather it seems to be that constantly there is this focus on a lamb. There's a lamb. It seems to be playing the central role in the Old Testament economy. Think about that great chapter, Isaiah 53. That's the last Old Testament reference. It is that chapter that Philip takes. and points the Philippian or the Ethiopian eunuch to, and he preaches Christ to him. You can read of that account in Acts chapter 8, but we're in Isaiah chapter 53. You read there about the one upon whom the iniquity of us all has fallen. one who bears the iniquity, who becomes the sacrifice, who becomes the substitute, who becomes the offering, who becomes the sacrifice. And what do we read of him there in Isaiah 53 and the verse number 7? He was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth, he is brought as a lamb. He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so we open not his mouth." Again, here we have probably the best known chapter, the most glorious chapter in the Old Testament, the one that most vividly points us to the coming Christ of God. We find him here, and how is he described? He is described as a lamb. He is described as a sheep, you see, in the subconsciousness of the Jew. A people who would have been so well versed in Old Testament Scriptures, the thought of a lamb was instilled time and time again prior to the coming of the Messiah. Prophetic Scripture pointed to a coming lamb. He appears. Now He has come. John the Baptist says, Behold the Lamb. This is the Lamb that was prophetically pictured, enabled sacrifice. This is the lamb that we see in Exodus chapter 12. This is the lamb that we see in Genesis chapter 22. This is the lamb. All of these lambs, they are pointing to the singular lamb. This is the lamb of God. Here he is. The amazing thing is that they They didn't know that it was Him. John said, in verse 26 of John 1, there standeth one among you whom ye know not. Whom ye know not. Despite being told that the Lamb had come, we find that for the vast majority of the Jews, they rejected such a revelation. They rejected Him as the Messiah. They rejected Him as their Savior. Though the Lamb stood among them. And though all prophetic scripture now find its fulfillment in Christ the Lamb of God, we find here that they still did not understand, they still did not recognize that Christ the Lamb of God had appeared. He is the fulfillment of the shadow, He is the fulfillment of all of the types, but they were blind to it all. Now it's obvious to us, of course it is, because the veil has been lifted. God has shone into our hearts the glorious gospel. We have come to understand that He is the Lamb of God, but for these individuals the veil remained upon them. How it reminds us that no matter how good the evidence that we would bring to an unconverted person concerning the Lord Jesus Christ, simple reasoning will not convince them that Jesus Christ is the Messiah, the Son of God. Human logic, as good as it is, and apologetics as good as they are, will not enable a person to embrace Jesus Christ as He has offered to them in the Gospel, rather it takes the Holy Ghost to illuminate the mind and to regenerate the heart and to bring faith and repentance into the soul of man and woman and boys and girls. If that does not happen, they will remain in blind ignorance. And today the Jew is still looking for the Lamb. But He's already come. the Lamb of God, and so we can behold Him prophetically. But as we continue to behold the Lamb of God, I want us, in the second instance, to behold the Lamb of God theologically, theologically. You know, whenever we come to focus on the purpose of heaven's Lamb and why He came into this world, we are brought to consider theological matters. Why did He come? Well, John the Baptist alludes to the purpose of his coming and why Christ came into the world, why he stepped into history, because we're reminded there in the words, yes, of our text, verse 29. Behold the Lamb of God, here's the purpose, which taketh away the sin of the world. Which taketh away the sin of the world. Now, in theological terms, What John the Baptist spoke about when he spoke about the Lamb of God taking away the sin of the world, he was dealing with a particular doctrine, the doctrine of expiation, the putting away of sin. That's what expiation is, the putting away of our sins. And how is that accomplished? By the atoning sacrifice of Christ. And so he is theological in his preaching. He is doctrinal in his preaching. This is not something, as it were, just to tickle the ears, some type of simple message for everyone to understand. No, rather there is theological depth to which he speaks here. We do not have all of his sermon, I don't believe, but rather but the introductory remarks. And as he deals with the subject, he deals with the great subject of expiation, the putting away of the sinner's sin. And, folks, that deals with many other doctrines, the doctrine of redemption, the doctrine of the atonement, the doctrine of reconciliation. All of these great doctrines are enveloped, are embraced In this very declaration, here comes the Lamb, and He's coming to take away the sin of the world. He's coming to make reconciliation. He's coming to redeem a people. He is coming to make atonement for sin. He is coming to blot out our sins and to take them away. All of the Old Testament lambs that were slain and whose blood was shen, was shed, pointed to this singular Lamb who would shed His blood and make full atonement for sin and secure eternal redemption for His people. William Bacon Stevens remarked, it was morally and physically necessary that Christ as the Lamb of God should be slain in order to secure our salvation. There was no other way. whereby a dishonored law could be magnified, its palantry removed, and the loss of eternal life by disobedience be repaired, He alone could fill up the mighty breach which sin had made. Sinless, He alone could offer His lifeblood that was not fortified for the life the blood of man that was forfeited. As we behold the Lamb of God, then we must view Him theologically. We do so in terms of the atonement. What a subject matter that is, the atonement made for sin. Atonement made, atonement accomplished, the removal of our sin, our reconciliation with God. Now there are three truths about the atonement that we find here in this particular declaration. I want you to see first of all the entity who made the atonement. Who is it that makes this atonement? Needless to say, it is the Son of God. The Son of God makes the atonement. He is referred to here as the Lamb of God. You see, it takes God, it takes God, it takes God to work. It takes God to die. As it were, the God-man, the man Christ Jesus, it takes the Son of God to offer up a satisfactory sacrifice to God that is sufficient to appease divine wrath, to uphold the moral law, the righteous law of God, and then to release the sinner, release the sinner from the law's demands. This requires God. This is the one who has made the atonement, God and God alone. The sacrifice of infinite worth has been made for my sins and for your sins. And how do we know Him to be God? Well, on this occasion, we see the Spirit of God descending upon the Christ of God. This is heaven's signal that He is who He claims to be. He is the Son of God. John even says, did you notice what he said? Verse 34, And I saw and bear record that this is the Son of God. This is the one who's going to take away the sins of the world. It's not a priest. It's not a man. No, this is the Son of God. God the Son is going to take away our sins. At the end today, I want you to know something else about this doctrine, this theology that's being taught here in this simple statement. I want you to think about the efficacy of the atonement. What does the atonement do? Does it do something? Yes, it takes away sin. Oh, the efficacy of it. the power of this atonement, oh the power of this sacrifice. It is enough, it is enough to take away sin. This is all that's needed to take away my sin. Not my works, not my morality, not my goodness, not my kindness, not my church attendance, not my giving in to the coffers of the church of Jesus Christ. Nothing can for sin atone, nothing but the blood of Jesus. This is an efficacious sacrifice. This is the efficacy of the blood. The slain Lamb of God takes away sin, both with respect to its guilt and its defilement. And thus all who look to Christ by faith, and appropriate that work to them by that act of faith, they come to experience the efficacy of this atonement. It takes away my sin. What did the hymn writer say? My sin. Oh, the bliss of this glorious thought. My sin, not in part, but the whole, is kneeled to His cross, and I bear it no more. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord, O my soul, how the Lamb has taken your sins away. Rejoice today, child of God. Rejoice. But then I want you to think about the extent of the atonement. That's a big debate. The extent of the atonement. John said that Christ came, the Lamb came to take away the sin of the world. Now you ask the question, well is John preaching universalism here? Is he teaching the heresy that all men are going to be saved? The Lamb's coming to take away the sin of the world. That means all will be saved. Is that what John's preaching? Of course not. Of course not. Not all men have faith. You read that in scripture. There are those in hell today that were never saved. They never believed in Christ. They never experienced the efficacy of the atonement, the blessing of sins forgiven. If Christ came to die for all the world, and all the world will be saved, well then what about Judas? Did he not die for him? No, Christ died for his people. Remember in the book of James we talked about context. Who is John the Baptist speaking to here? Well, he's speaking to the Jew. These are Jewish people. They've come to hear him out of Jerusalem and from the neighboring towns and villages, and so he's speaking to the Jew. And who did the Jew think Christ would deliver? The Messiah. Oh, they were so blinkered. They thought that he's coming for simply the Jew. John the Baptist is revealing in this very statement, it's not only the Jew, but it is the Gentile for the world, for a world of sinners. I'm coming to die for Jew and for Gentile and all who believe on me will be saved from their sin. We read statements that all the world went out after Christ. Did that mean that every individual went after Christ? Of course it didn't. It is only but a phrase that is employed to manifest how many went out after Christ. It didn't mean that the whole world went out after him. And so we have here in this statement, he dies. He comes to take away the sins of the world. Those who will believe on him he dies for. This is whom he dies for, you see, Christ in making atonement. Thank God he accomplished what he purposed to do. To say anything else means that Christ failed in what he came to do. to say that He came to die for the world and yet there are some that are lost? That places a question mark over the sufficiency and the ability of Christ's atonement. No, we believe that Christ died for a specific people. They're called His elect. To know that you are one of God's elect is to believe, to be saved. receive him as he is offered to you in the gospel. Let me quote quickly John Gill here, the predecessor of Mr. Spurgeon. He said this concerning this statement, the sin of the world. He said, John here signifies that the Lamb of God he pointed at, and which was the anti-type of these lambs, not only took away the sins of God's people among the Jews, but the sins of such of them also as were among the Gentiles. And this seems to me to be the true sense of the passage. He died for us. He died for us. His people, his redeemed people, his elect people, his sacrifice is sufficient. His sacrifice is efficient to put away the sins of his people. Are you one of His today? Are you saved? Have you been redeemed? So we think of Him prophetically. We think of Him theologically. We think of Him historically. We behold the Lamb of God historically. The Lamb of God must not be thought of as a character in some work of fiction. We're not speaking here about a fictional character. This is a real man. A real being, a real person in history who comes into history, who steps outside of history into history. This is the eternal God. This is the Father's delight. This is the individual who was foreordained before the foundation of the world to be slain on behalf of his people. Rather, oh, this person is a real person. Galatians 4, verse 4 and 5. But when the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. Jesus Christ stepped into history, and thank God he impacted history. He impacted history. History. History informs us that there was a real man. a real individual who lived in real time, and his name was Jesus of Nazareth. History records it. We have two lines or two threads of evidence that really point us to the same truth that there was a historical man called Jesus Christ. We think of sacred writings, sacred writings. We appeal always first to Scripture, and we have the Gospels. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, they speak to us of Jesus Christ, and then we go into the epistles and the letters, and they point us back to the Lord Jesus Christ. The Old Testament Scriptures point us to the Lord Jesus Christ, the Messiah, and so sacred history itself. Did you know that the Koran speaks of Jesus? The Koran? Now, they simply see him as a prophet. but they speak of Jesus Christ. I do not place those writings in the sacred writings, but they are writings nonetheless. But then we have secular writing. They also appeal to the fact that Jesus of Nazareth did live in this world. Let me quote a Roman historian by the name of Tactius. He wrote this in 1864. Nero fastened the guilt on a class headed for their abominations called Christians by the populace Christos, or Christos, from whom the name had its origins, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of Pontius Pilate. Here is a Roman historian, not a Christian, And he speaks of Christ in his Latin name, Christos, Christos. And he speaks about Jesus Christ. There was another individual, a man by the name of Pliny the Younger. Pliny the Younger was the Roman governor of Bithynia in Asia Minor. And he wrote in AD 112, he said this, they were in the habit of meeting on certain fixed days, speaking of Christians before it was light, and they sang in alternate verses a hymn to Christ as to a God and bound themselves by a solemn oath. Pliny speaks about Christ, a man called Christ, Josephus, He was a Roman historian or Jewish historian. He speaks of Christ. Samuel Stata, who was a second century Greek satirist, he also makes reference to Jesus Christ. Historians speak of Jesus. Historical, one who stepped into history, one who lived in history. What I'm trying to simply convey to you by citing these secular writers is that Jesus Christ was deemed to be a real person who lived on earth even by those who had no reason to believe in him. Now all that has ramifications for us because it is because Jesus Christ the Son of God, it is because he did live in history, then His commands and His claims over us are binding. His command to repent and believe the gospel is binding upon you, the sinner. And His claim to be Lord over the lives of His people is binding upon us because He lived. But I want you to see finally We can behold the Lamb of God, and this is most important. Yes, we can behold Him prophetically. Yes, we behold Him historically. We behold Him as He comes, theologically. But you need to behold Him personally, personally. The Gospel writers Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John placed the Lamb of God before the sinner as God's only way of sacrifice. All four gospels end in the same way. They end in the crucifixion and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. This is the gospel that Christ died for us according to the scriptures, that he was buried, and on the third day, he rose again according to the scriptures. He is the only way of salvation. The apostles continue then to direct all eyes upon Christ. What did Peter say? In Acts 4 verse 12, neither is there salvation in any other, for there's none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved. He is the only way, the truth and the life. He is the only means of salvation. What did Paul say there to the Philippian jailer? What must I do to be saved was the question. The reply was, believe on. the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved. And so we have the gospel writers pointing to Christ, we have the apostles pointing to Christ, and every faithful minister and preacher and pastor and evangelist down through church history for the last 2,000 years have all pointed sinners to one person. One person. That's it. The Lamb of God. Look to Him. Look to Christ. Be saved. Look away from self. Look away from sin. And look away to the Lord Jesus Christ. Set your eyes upon Him. Transfix your thoughts upon Him. Look unto Me and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth. For I am God and there is none else. If you want to be saved, if you want your sins to be taken away, then you need to behold the Lamb of God. personally. Your mother, your fathers looking to Christ is not sufficient for you. Your grandparents looking to Christ is not sufficient for you. You as an individual must look away to Christ. Look away to Him now. Look and live. Look and live. And my question is this, have you looked Have you looked to the Lamb of God for salvation? Have you beheld the bleeding, the dying, suffering Lamb of God, who in His sufferings bore your penalty, your punishment, your curse? Is He no longer a Lamb? And is He no longer the Lamb? Is He your Lamb? Exodus 12. You find the progression from a lamb to the lamb to your lamb. Is he your lamb? Precious lamb of glory. God's most wondrous story. God comes and offers himself as the lamb. No, folks, there's coming a day when the lamb is going to appear again. He's going to come to this world again. The book of the Revelation speaks of that day. Let me read just a few verses. In the book of the Revelation, the chapter 6, verses 14 to the end, and heaven departed as a scroll when it was rolled together, and every mountain and island were moved out of their places. And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every free man, hid themselves in the dens, and in the rocks of the mountains, and said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb. For the great day of his wrath is come, and who shall be able to stand? The Lamb is coming. He's coming in wrath. Oh, what a tragedy for you if on that day you would be found the object off the Lamb's wrath. Instead of being the object of His love, I counsel you, look away to the Lamb. Look away to the substitutionary Lamb of God. Look away to Him as your Savior. Trust in His blood for the present, the complete, the everlasting pardon of all of your sins and having beheld him in that way, and having received him as your Lord and as your Savior, then do what the two disciples of John did whenever they beheld the Lamb." What did they do? When they saw the Lamb, they left John and they followed Christ. They followed Him. Follow the Lamb. Follow Him. And if you do so, Then, then you can look forward to what we read, what happens in heaven. There in Revelation 7 in the verse 17 it says, which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them and shall lead them on to living fountains of waters, and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes. The one who follows the Lamb on earth will follow the Lamb, thank God, in glory, and will be satisfied, because the Lamb is all the glory in Emmanuel's land. And so today, let us again behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world, and let us be sure that He has taken away my sins. Behold the Lamb of God. Amen. May God bless His Word. Let's bow, please, in prayer. If there be one here and you're not a Christian, Someone listening in, you're concerned about spiritual things. You're concerned about the day of the wrath of the Lamb. Lamb, please make your need known. We're here to help. We'll spend as long as we need to with you. Make sure you know the Lamb. Make sure you've personally beheld Him as your Savior, as your Lord, as your Your sacrifice. Our loving Father, we rejoice that we have saw the Lamb again. How thrilling to behold Him. The great atonement that He's made. Great sacrifice. One of worth and value far exceeding any individual on earth. The praise of heaven is the Lamb. O may we praise him on earth, with hearts redeemed and saved by precious blood. Part us now with thy blessing, take us safely home, as thy servant as he preaches thy word in this place this evening. And may many be drawn to the Lamb. May all eyes be transfixed on the Lamb. Do that also in gospel open air this afternoon. We offer prayer through our Savior's precious name. Amen.