Gospel—Bob Thonney
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Good evening.
I'd like to start the meeting with #23.
Behold, behold the Lamb of God.
On the cross for us. He shed his precious blood on the cross.
O here the overwhelming cry Eli Lamisa backed, and I draw near and see the Savior die on the cross.
Behold, behold the Lamb of God.
On the cross.
On the cross.
To sing also #14 in our hymn sheet. Have you been?
To Jesus for the cleansing power. Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?
Have you been to Jesus for the cleansing power? Are you one?
Are you watching my blood?
All you want in my life.
In the soul 24 of the land.
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Spotless, heartless, heartless heartbreak.
Are you lost in the flood of the man?
Are you lost in the world?
In the soul 21 of the land.
Are your warm and calmness of this all day wise?
That's quite a challenging question, you know.
As I started a gospel meeting like this, I feel challenged because I look out over the grip here and I know pretty much everybody has been sitting in meetings like this perhaps most of your life.
But the point is, have you been washed in the blood of the lamb? Have you made it personal? Way too many people that have sat in meetings like this.
And now they are leading lives that make us wonder if they have ever really, truly accepted the Lord Jesus and as their Savior. You know what the Lord said? He said by their fruit she shung all them.
And if they are not the fruits, then there's a doubt in our mind.
As to the reality, and so I cannot make a judgment.
Only God knows, the Lord knows them that are His.
But I've seen way too many.
That have grown up in Sunday schools in the meetings.
And have heard the gospel most of their life, some of whom today are professing atheists.
Can I hardly believe it? I have no clue. I'm glad I do not have to present.
A past judgment on such persons, but I want.
To say at the beginning of this meeting.
Please be real with God. You can fuel me. There's been a lot of people that have fooled me.
You cannot fool God, and it's His word we're speaking tonight. And so I ask you.
To let his word penetrate.
This afternoon in the address we heard about Abraham and I'd like to go back to Genesis.
Chapter 22 to begin with, and there's a question in that chapter.
That resonates down through the ages of the Old Testament.
And we'll read and when we get to that question, I'll.
Mention it.
Came to pass after these things that God did tempt Abraham, and said unto him.
Abraham. And he said, Behold, here I am.
And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son I seek, whom thou lovest.
And get thee into the land of Moriah, and offer him therefore a burnt offering upon one of the mountains, which I will tell thee of.
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This is very incredibly challenging request that God makes of Abraham. You know, in the New Testament, Abraham is called the friend of God.
To make a request of a friend like this.
Is incredibly interesting and difficult.
What in the world did God have in mind? You know Abraham had waited for Isaac for many years.
And finally, when his wife, Sarah was beyond the years of conception.
God gave her conception and at 90 years of age when Abraham was 100 years old.
She presented him with this little boy, Isaac.
You know what his name means. It means laughter. And when people heard about a woman 90 years old bearing a son, I'm sure there was laughter.
It was an incredible miracle, but now God comes to Abraham and says Abraham.
Take that son, it was the only son he had of Sarah and offer him up for a burnt offering. You know what a burnt offering was? It was an offering.
That after it was killed, it was put on the altar and burnt to ashes.
Take that thy son, and offer him for a burnt offering.
Incredibly difficult request.
Is there any back talk with Abraham?
Notice verse 3. Abraham rose up.
Early in the morning, he didn't delay things he didn't stay in bed for.
A while ago he got up early in the morning and saddled his ***.
Took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son, and paved the wood for the burnt offering.
Rose up, and went unto the place of which God had told him.
Then on the third day, Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place afar off. After three days.
Travel.
Abraham said unto us, Young men, abide ye here with the *** and I, and the lad will go Yonder.
And worship and come again to you.
It's interesting when it says come again, it's in the plural. Abraham had the confidence that even if he burnt Isaac to ashes.
That God could raise him from the dead. And so he said to the young men.
We're going to go and sacrifice and come again.
To you what faith? Incredible faith. And Abraham took the word of the burnt offering.
And laid it upon Isaac, his son. You know, I often wondered how old Isaac was. It doesn't say the scriptures.
But to carry enough wood for a burnt offering was not for a small boy.
He must have been a young man, and so he put the wood on Isaac, his son.
And he took the fire in his hand and a knife, and they went, both of them together.
And Isaac spake unto Abraham his father.
Don't know. Until this time, evidently Abraham had not told.
Isaac that he was going to be he the offering.
So Isaac says.
My father.
And he said, here am I my sin. And he said, Behold the fire.
And the wood.
But where is the lamb for a burnt offering? That's the question that stands out in this chapter. Where is the lamb for a burnt offering?
Rather than that, maybe my father forgot.
But notice Abraham's answer verse 8. Abraham said my son.
God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering.
So they went, both of them together.
And they came to the place which God had told him of. Abraham built an altar there.
Laid the wood in order.
And bound Isaac his son, and laid him on the altar upon the wood.
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No indication of any struggle.
Abraham, or I should say Isaac, evidently had confidence.
In his father that he realized his father was doing what?
He should do.
But notice verse 10 and this to me.
One of the most hard verses it must have been, for Abraham stretched forth his hand.
And took the knife to slay his son.
Oh my. Oh.
You know what?
God is showing us a picture in this story.
Abraham, fix your God the Father.
Isaac, picture of the Lord Jesus.
The eternal Son in the bosom of the Father.
And since Abraham was the friend of God, I like to think that God was saying Abraham.
I want to tell you a secret.
I too have an only begotten Son.
And Abraham, I'm going to sacrifice him.
We don't know how much Abraham really grasped that.
We can't really say beyond scripture.
But when he took that knife to slay his son and I often think.
It would be harder for me when I have two sons, myself and my family.
To plunge that knife into my son.
Rather plunge it into myself to do it to my son.
Do we understand the sacrifice? It was for God?
To give His only begotten Son for the likes of rebellious sinners like us.
No, we can't grasp that. It's beyond us.
But that's all the further this story goes. God stopped him there. Abraham. Abraham.
And he said don't lay your hand on your son.
And Abraham says, lifted up his eyes and looked behind him.
And.
There verse.
13 lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him.
A RAM.
Caught in a thicket by his horns. And Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead of his son.
Where is the lamb for a burnt offering temporarily?
Here is the RAM to take the place of Isaac.
And that RAM was offered as a burnt offering.
In the stead of his son.
What a story.
You know, I don't think we grasp in our.
Day How serious sin is with God.
We tend to take it rather lightly so often.
But sin is a serious thing. There is only one thing that can protect you from the judgment of God.
Is the blood of an acceptable sacrifice?
And so in the case of Isaac here it was the blood of a ram.
Just to remember a number of years ago.
Being down in the Dominican Republic.
In at a conference.
And they had.
A wasn't. It was a young.
Steer they had if they were going to butcher for.
The conference.
And I stood off to the side to watch the process.
And it was what you'd call gruesome, but impressive.
The brother that was in charge of doing the butchering took the knife.
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Got down in the front of the thing, it was quite calm.
And took that knife and rammed it into the chest of that.
Animal.
Was a long knife, probably that long and pulled it out.
And the blood came gushing out, and that poor animal and the pain.
That he was experienced bellowed.
And the blood came a gushing out until he fell on his front legs to the ground.
And then he fell over dead.
Death is a serious thing. It's not a pleasant thing.
And so we need to understand when you sin.
Especially when you do it knowingly how serious that is before God.
And unless there's repentance on your part, there can be no forgiveness.
They were to prevent.
Preach repentance toward God.
And faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. It's not only faith that saves, it takes repentance.
The Lord Jesus said, Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.
So take sin seriously. It's no light matter God.
It costs God the death of his only Son. And so as we go through the Old Testament scriptures.
We find this question ringing. Where is the lamb? And there were multitudes of animals that were sacrificed in the Old Testament times.
Solomon and the dedication of the Temple offered a sacrifice of 120,000 lambs.
And 22,000 oxen.
Can you imagine that quantity of animals, that quantity of blood it was?
Literally, it must have been rivers of blood.
That flowed.
Could any of that blood put away sin before the eyes of a holy God?
You know what the Old Testament has a word that it uses? Atonement.
And atonement means a covering, so when that blood of that animal was.
Sprinkled on the Ark of the Covenant and the great Day of Atonement.
Sin was covered temporarily.
When you come to the New Testament, the word atonement is really not used. You find it in the King James Version, in Romans chapter 5, but it's really not supposed to be a tone that's supposed to be reconciliation there because when it comes to the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus.
Sin was not merely covered, it was put away by the sacrifice of himself.
So the question of sin has been resolved eternally.
By the sacrifice of himself, but until that time.
The question rings through the whole Old Testament Where is the lamb?
In Egypt.
On the Passover night, you remember, they were told to take a lamb.
According to the House of their fathers, without blemish, they were to keep it up.
For four days. Representative of the 4000 years from Adam to Christ.
When God was Real of Ewing.
The human race, when he was saying where is the lamb, He did not find one that was fit for such a sacrifice.
Where is the lamb?
Now we go over to John's Gospel chapter one.
Please. And there we have the answer.
Demilis, so beautiful. One day John the Baptist, the forerunner of the Lord Jesus.
Is speaking.
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And in chapter one and verse 29.
Here's what it says the next day, John. That's John the Baptist.
Sees Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.
Yes, the sin is going to be completely taken.
Away by the sacrifice of this Lamb, so the Lord Jesus.
You know John the Baptist Mother and the Lord Jesus as mother and the flesh.
Were cousins.
And so I'm sure they must have known each other in a human way.
But John the Baptist, when he sees the Lord Jesus here, he says.
Behold the Lamb of God, which takes away the sin of the world.
But let me tell you a little bit more about this lamb. Who was this person?
Who was this Lamb? And in this chapter, John's Gospel chapter one, we have.
A number of different titles of the Lord Jesus that tell us who he was. To me it's amazingly wonderful to talk about it. Verse one of this chapter in the beginning was the word.
And the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
This is an interesting title of the Lord Jesus the Word.
What I use? What do we use words for?
To express thoughts, ideas.
I could stand here and Justice look at you for quite a while.
You'd say, what in the world is he thinking?
You wouldn't know until I opened my mouth and used words.
What I was thinking. So words are the expression.
Of what I would be thinking.
You know, God is so infinite, so eternal. You know, it just blows my mind to think of a person.
Who always was, who never had a beginning. Can you grasp that? That just blows my mind. I can't grasp it, it's beyond me, but that's what it is. Here. In the beginning was the Word, His eternality, and the Word was with God. In other words, He was a distinct person in the Godhead. God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and the Word was not the Father.
Word was not the Holy Spirit, the Word was the Son.
And then it says the word was God, He was deity, He was God in every sense of the word. And it says the same was in the beginning with God. In other words, in the beginning, that's who He was. He didn't become this at a certain point of time.
No, He was that from all eternity, the eternal Son.
But notice something else about in verse 3. All things were made by him.
And without him was not anything made that was made. In other words, he's the creator of everything.
And that's such an incredible thing to think about, too. You know, I hear reports of the.
Size of the universe and every report I hear it seems like.
The numbers just get bigger and bigger and bigger.
I don't know if I mentioned it, but some years ago I was talking at a young people singing out in Los Angeles.
And I mentioned that scientists believe that in our Milky Way.
Galaxy, we have probably about 100 billion.
Stars.
In one Galaxy.
Young man came up to me afterward and said, you know what, they really think the number is closer to 200 billion.
Wow, I said. That's fascinating.
Was a few years ago, I was back out in the Los Angeles area and somebody showed me a video of a astronomer talking and he said it's closer now to 300 billion stars. I mean, the numbers just keep going up.
And he spoke all this into existence by the word of his power.
Can you grasp a person of that magnitude?
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I'm baffled. I'm totally baffled.
You know how small that makes me feel?
Rightly so.
Rightly so, we're just specs.
In the universe, he made it all.
And this is that same person we're talking about, the lamb.
Of God, but notice in verse.
14 It says the word was made flesh.
This is the only reference in John's Gospel to his birth.
The word was made flesh. In other words, it wasn't his beginning. He was from all eternity, but the time came when he was born into this world of a woman.
Necessarily, he had to become a man to be able to be the sacrifice for sin, to be able to be the Lamb of God, to be able to die. God cannot die. He's immortal.
A man can die, and so he became a man to die to pay the price of redemption.
The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us.
And we beheld His glory, the glorious of the only Begotten of the Father.
Full of grace and truth. Amazingly wonderful.
The only begotten of the Father. This is another of his titles.
Occupies that place of oneness or of uniqueness?
That here is the object of the Father's heart of love.
From all eternity, this is the one God gave.
So freely.
I just marvel and I think of how he was born.
Into this world.
In such humiliation.
His poor mother, after coming all that way from Galilee.
To Bethlehem.
And going to the inn to find a place to stay.
Just about to give birth, told to go outworthy animals are.
Might find a spot out there.
There's where the King.
Of glory came into the world. What a story. What a story. You know the angels came down to witness it because the angels had never seen their Creator in physical form.
And when they saw it, they must have thought, where are these people?
They have.
The word in their hands. They know the answers to the questions, but they have no clue.
That God has become Incarnate in the person of His own beloved Son.
And so they go out into the fields where these shepherds are, and they tell them.
They're the ones that hear the story first.
So the Lord Jesus was here in this world as a stranger.
Oh, what a story, meeting up with needy souls. I'm amazed how in wisdom he touched lives. That dear woman in the fourth of John who was thirsty, Not only did she have a thirsty body, but she had a thirsty soul. And she comes out there one day to get water, and there's a man sitting on the edge of the well.
She doesn't know who he is. And he says give me to drink. And how in the world you ask? Drink of me. You're a Jew and I'm a Samaritan. Jews and Samaritans don't have anything to do with each other.
Did he answer that? No, he said, if you knew.
Who it was that said to you, give me to drink? You would have asked of him.
And he would have given you living water.
And so finally she says, Sir, give me this living water.
The Lord Jesus had to touch your conscience.
Because there is sin in their life, like there is sin in all our lives that has to be faced.
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And judged.
And she said, he said to her in his wisdom, go call your husband and come here.
I don't have any husband. She thought she would cover up the issue that way.
But you know, with an all seen God you can't cover things up.
So the Lord Jesus said you said it right, you don't have a husband. You've had five husbands and the one you have right now isn't your husband.
She realized, here's somebody that knows everything. My life.
You know what? He knows everything of your life too. You can't hide anything.
You might have hidden from your parents, from your brethren, things you cannot hide from him. It's impossible.
And she says you must be a prophet.
That then later on she says, I know that Messiah cometh when he has come, he will tell us all things.
And the Lord Jesus said, I that speak unto thee, and he.
Isn't that beautiful? Wonderful how she came to know the Lord Jesus and she goes and tells others about him.
Oh what a story, the Lord Jesus through his life meeting with needy souls like that.
But I want to go over to John chapter 19 because there's where we have.
The Lamb sacrificed. Before we get to chapter 19, go back to chapter 18.
Just want to point out.
Verse.
38 Pilate that said unto him, What is truth? And when he had said this, he went out again unto the Jews, and saith unto them, Notice this I find in him no fault at all.
Now chapter 19.
And Pilate therefore took Jesus and scourged him.
Pilot, you just said you didn't find any fault. Why are you scourging him?
Is this justice?
The soldiers planted a crown of thorns and put it on his head. They put on him a purple robe. He said, Hail King of the Jews, and they smote him with their hands. Pilate therefore went forth again, and saith unto them, Behold, I bring him forth to you, that ye may know that I find no fault in him. Again he says the same, no fault.
And came Jesus forth, wearing the crown of thorns in the purple robe. Pilate saith unto them. Behold.
The man when the chief priest therefore enough officers saw him, they cried out, saying crucify him.
Crucify him, Pilate said unto them. Take ye him, and crucify him. Here's the third time, for I find no fault in him. This is human justice.
And Ohio.
It's in connection with the Christ of God. No fault here is God's lamb and.
Completely sinless. Not only did he not sin.
He could not sin. In him was number sin.
What a story of God's lamb.
Verse.
Nine, or verse 8 When Pilate therefore heard that saying, he was the more afraid, and went again into the judgment hall, and saith unto Jesus, Whence art thou?
But Jesus gave him no answer. Then said Pilate unto him, Speakest thou not unto me?
Norest thou not that I have power to crucify thee, not power to release thee?
Jesus answered, Thou couldst have no power at all against me, except that we are given thee from above.
Therefore he that delivered me unto thee hath the greater sin. From thenceforth Pilate sought to release him.
The Jews cried out, saying, If thou let this man go, thou art not Caesar's friend.
Whosoever maketh himself a king speaketh against Caesar.
When Pilate therefore heard that saying, he brought Jesus forth and sat down in the judgment seat in a place.
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That is called the pavement, but in the Hebrew was the preparation of the Passover in about the 6th hour.
And he said unto the Jews, Behold your king. But they cried out Away with him, away with him, crucify him.
Pilate said unto them, Shall I crucify your king?
Chief priests answered, We have no king but Caesar.
Then delivered here him therefore unto them to be crucified, and they took Jesus, and led him away.
And he bearing his cross, went forth into a place called the place of a skull, which is called in the Hebrew.
Golgotha where they crucified him and two other with him on either side, one in Jesus.
In the midst, here's God's lamb. Pilate wrote a title and put it on the cross, and the writing was Jesus.
Of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.
This title then read many of the Jews, for the place where Jesus was crucified was nigh to the city.
It was written in Hebrew and Greek and Latin.
Then said the chief priests of the Jews to Pilate right, not the king of the Jews, but that he said, I am the king of the Jews.
Pilate answered. What I have written, I have written. The soldiers, when they had crucified him, took his garments and made four parts.
To every soldier apart. And also his coat. Now the coat was without seam, woven from the top throughout.
They said, therefore are among themselves, Let us not rend it, but cast lots for it whose it shall be, the Scripture might be fulfilled. Which saith They parted my raiment among them, and for my vesture did they cast lots. These things therefore the soldiers did.
Verse 28 After this, Jesus, knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the Scripture might be fulfilled, saith.
I thirst now. There was set a vessel full of vinegar.
And they filled a sponge with vinegar, and put it upon hyssop, and put it to his mouth. When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said.
It is finished.
Bowed his head and gave up the ghost.
That word in the Spanish is consumado S it is consumed.
All the judgment of God that was against us as guilty sinners was completely answered.
By the Lord's expiatory death on the cross of Calvary.
What a story. Here is God's plan. He died.
He gave up his life, the Jews, therefore, because it was the preparation that the body should not remain upon the cross on the Sabbath day.
For that Sabbath was in high day, besought Pilate, that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away.
And came the soldiers, and break the legs of the 1St and of the other.
Which is crucified with him, that when they came to Jesus.
Saw that he was dead already. They break not his legs, but one of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side.
Forthwith came there out blood and water, and he that saw it bear record in his record is true, and he knoweth that he set through that ye might believe.
So here's the sacrifice.
Here is what takes away sin from the eye of God. You remember in the Old Testament we didn't get down that far in the story of the Passover, but.
They had to not only kill that lamb that was kept up to the 4th day.
But they had to take its blood and apply it to the two sideposts and to the upper doorpost of the houses.
Where they were staying.
And it says when I see the blood, I will Passover you.
The only thing that could save them from the destroying Angel was the blood applied. It's not enough that you know that Christ died and shed his precious blood, you must apply it through personal faith in the Lord Jesus.
You may know about it, but you've got to make it a personal matter between you and God. Have you accepted the Lord Jesus as your own personal Savior? So the blood was.
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Shed the soldier pierced his side. It came out of a dead.
Christ, how important that is. It's in the Gospel that speaks of the Lord Jesus as the Lamb of God.
The only one of the three gospels or four gospels that speaks about the blood.
Is this gospel? How important it is? There is nothing that can protect you from the.
Judgment of God, except the blood of God's Lamb, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Well, we know the story that the Lord Jesus was buried and that he rose again the third day.
But I want to go on now to the Book of Revelation and.
First of all, in chapter 5 to talk about this lamb.
John. This is the apostle John.
Who wrote this epistle? Or it wrote this book and it says in verse.
Six. He's up in heaven now witnessing this, and I beheld and, lo, in the midst of the throne and of the four beasts, and in the midst of the elders, stood a lamb as it had been slain.
The Lord Jesus is the one who occupies, as far as God is concerned, that central.
Position in the midst.
And so he sees him that lamb, and notice.
Says verse seven, he came and took the book out of the right hand of him that sat upon the throne.
The book is sometimes called the title Deed to Planet Earth.
When he had taken the book, the four beasts and the four and 20 elders fell down before the Lamb, having every one of them harps in golden vials full of odors, which are the prayers of Saints. And they sung a new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof, For thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred.
And tongue, and people and nation, and that's made us unto our God, kings and priests, and we shall reign.
On the earth, here's redemption song through the blood of the Lamb.
How important this is. But before we come to the end of our.
Meeting I want to read to you an expression that has stood out to me.
Very strongly in a number of occasions in Chapter 6, towards the end of Chapter 6.
Here we have this sealed judgments, the judgments that are going to begin to fall on planet Earth and.
I don't think we have a clue as to the awfulness of the judgment that's about to come on planet Earth.
People think they've seen bad times and they have nothing in comparison with what's coming.
And so here in verse 12 of this 6th chapter.
The 6th seal is opened. I beheld when he had opened the 6th seal and lo there was a.
Great earthquake, and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood, and the stars of heaven fell into the earth, even as a fig tree casteth her untimely figs when she is shaken of a mighty wind. And the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together. Every mountain and island were moved out of their places. The kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, the mighty men and every bondsman and every freeman.
Hid themselves in the dens and the rocks of the mountains, and said to the mountains.
Rocks fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne. And notice this expression.
And from the wrath of the Lamb. Isn't that interesting?
You don't think of a lamb as one who has rats.
Such a little meek, gentle animal.
What is this, The wrath of the Lamb?
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The one.
Who was slain so that his precious blood could provide eternal redemption?
For those who believe in him. For those who refuse to trust him.
They're going to face this day of the wrath of the Lamb. How awful it's going to be in this. Figures that we have here, of the sun being darkened and the moon becoming as blood, and the stars of heaven falling to the earth are figures of this whole system of government that we've known and lived under coming down.
It's all going to be replaced. We're coming down to the end of it. You know, brethren, to me, it's so serious to see the way our country is decaying. We should respect authority in the measure that we can, but it's decaying very evidently. The whole thing is going to come down, and I believe it's beginning to come down now.
It's going to be an awful time when things are shaken to the point where.
These people are going to call on the rocks and mountains to.
Fall on us, and hide us from the face of Him that sitteth on the throne, and from the.
Wrath of the Lamb.
That same one that hung on that cross to pay the price of redemption.
Is coming back and he's going to set this world in order again.
But it will be an intense.
Judgment.
Where are you sitting here in this room? You have not.
Made it real in your own soul with the Lord Jesus.
He is the lamb.
Of God that takes away the sin of the world, but if you cling to your sin.
If you refuse to repent and come to him in simple faith.
You're going to face this one.
The wrath of the Lamb we are here to plead with you.
To take it seriously, to get right with God, don't play with sin.
It's deadly.
So we have in Genesis 22 That question, where is the Lamb? And the answer in John 129, behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world. And we've seen that that person was nailed to a cross.
We know the story how the darkness descended at 12 noon when the Lord Jesus was on that cross and God poured out His judgment on that sin because He was the holy sin bearer and all the wrath of God was poured out on him so that He could show mercy to you. And now you despise what He has done for you you. The only thing that's left is the wrath.
Of the Lamb we plead with you to take it seriously, to repent.
And to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ while there is still time.