“He Came Unto His Own and His Own Received Him Not“
He Came Unto His Own and His Own Received Him Not
Pastor and Author A.W. Tozer
November 8, 1953
I am to speak tonight from the eleventh verse of the first chapter of the gospel as given to us by the Holy Ghost through his servant John. The words are, He came unto His own and His own received Him not. That is only a single sentence broken by a comma. He came unto His own and His own received Him not.
Now I want you to notice first of all the words, He came. You know in the early part of the chapter we learn what He was doing before the world was. Before the creation came to be, before Bethlehem, we read simply in little, short words, He was, in Him was, He was with, He was God, He was in. Those are simple words, but they are at the root of theology. They are at the root of all truth.
Now in this verse, for the first time, we have a hint of the incarnation. He came, that’s the first hint. Before that, it had been in the eternal past, or it had been since the creation, but before the incarnation. In Him was life. In the beginning He was. In the beginning He was God. All things were made by Him. In Him was life, and He was the true light that light is every man that cometh into the world.
Now it says, He came. And I have been struck by the wonder of these words, He came. The story of pity and mercy and redeeming love are all here in two words, He came. All the pity capable, that God is capable of feeling, all the mercy He is capable of showing, and all the redeeming grace that He could pour out of His heart, all are at least suggested here in two simple words, He came. And all the hopes and longings and aspirations and dreams of immortality that lie in the human breast, all had their fulfillment in two words, He came.
I wonder if that should not suggest to us that simplicity is always best, and that you can say more with short words than you can with long ones. And that brevity beats the interminable pouring out of verbiage that we preachers are given to. It says, He came. And all the hopes of mankind, and man has always been a hopeful creature.
John Milton says, hope springs eternal in the human breast. And that eternal hope that springs always in the human breast, that like the lark at break of day arising, that hope finds its fulfillment here, He came. And all those longings and aspirations, I repeat, because man has always been an aspiring creature, even while groveling in the dirt, even while lying in the pigsty, he remembers his father’s house and says, what am I doing here? He may lie there and never get up, but he aspires, he remembers. And all the dreams of immortality, because all the human race has dreamed of immortality.
Nobody wants to think that when we say the remains, our brother tonight used the phrase so common, the remains will be at Lane’s undertaking establishment. Now there’s something in us that fights that. We fight that to the bitter end. Our minds will not accept it. You know you’re going to die, but you do not believe you’re going to die. Your mentality will not visualize it. You will not surrender, as Bryant said, you’re a universal being. You will not give it up to the clay. You have hopes of immortality and dreams of a life to come.
And all of this is summed up here in the two words, He came. I want you to know that these two one-syllable words occupy only seven spaces on a line. I suppose that’s the editor in me, but only seven spaces on the line, these words, He came, and yet what it tells us here is profounder than all philosophy. Now I’m not simply using words, and I’m not using superlatives carelessly. I realize that there is a danger that we should stress too much and underscore too much.
Sometimes I get articles from men who get their effects by everlastingly underscoring or writing them in capitals, and some even go so far as to write them with the red part of the ribbon. If they want to emphasize, they use the red part of the ribbon, or underscore or make capitals. You never, you don’t have to edit articles like that, you just have to fold them up and send them back. Nobody wants to read anything where the writer couldn’t think of anything to do except underscore. It is like the preacher that never can make a point without roaring. You heard that, that type, haven’t you? If the thing sounds good, they beat the desk and roar. That’s supposed to be spiritual, but it isn’t spiritual, it’s ridiculous. How’d I get on this?
But I was saying that I do not want to use superlatives, but there are some times when superlatives are absolutely necessary, you can’t escape them. And when I say that these two words in John, He came, contain profounder truth in all philosophy, that’s a superlative statement, but it is nevertheless a balanced and accurate statement. For not all the great thinkers of the world ever thought out anything that could even remotely approach the wonder and the profundity of the words, He came. And these words are wiser than all learning.
Not all the men who have ever gathered together the lore of the ages and written them in books have ever thought of anything as deep and wonderful and wise as the words, He came. These words, if they’re understood in their high spiritual context, they are more beautiful than all art and more eloquent than all oratory, and more musical than all music, and more lyric than all song, because they tell us that we, when in the darkness, were visited by the Light.
Oh, that that might strike us. I wish we could get as thrilled up about it as they were in those early times. I wish that when we sing the light of the world is Jesus, that we could get a look on our faces that would make the world believe we mean it.
Now, Milton celebrated the coming of Jesus into the world in one of the most beautiful odes that ever has been written that begins, This is the month, and this the happy morn, wherein the Son of Heav’n’s Eternal King, of wedded Maid and Virgin Mother born, our great redemption from above did bring; for so the holy sages once did sing that He our deadly forfeit should release, and with His Father work us a perpetual peace. That glorious Form, that Light unsufferable, and that far-beaming blaze of Majesty, wherewith He wont at Heav’n’s high council-table to sit the midst of Trinal Unity, he laid aside; and, here with us to be, forsook the courts of everlasting day, and chose with us a darksome house of mortal clay.
And that was Milton’s description of the incarnation. It says, He came, and I for one am plain childishly glad that He came. For one, I’m plain childishly glad about it. But we sit and take it as though we were bored with it, and I’m not sure that we are not. I am not sure that we are not, that we’re not bored with it. I’m not sure that we haven’t heard it so much that it doesn’t mean much anymore.
But He came, those wonderful, beautiful words. He came, and then it says here, He came unto His own. Now that’s going a little further with it. He came unto His own, and His own received Him not.
Now it’s a strange thing that the two words His own, His own, are the same in our English, and yet they are utterly and completely different as used by John. For, the first, His own, is translated, His own things, His own world, His own home. He came unto His own world, He came unto His own possessions, He came unto His own things. And one translation says He came unto his own home, but His own people received Him not. So that, His own, as used in the second place, does not refer to the same thing as used in the first place. He came to His world, and His own people didn’t know who He was, and didn’t receive Him.
Now, He came unto His own world, let’s let it rest at that. For this is Christ’s world. I wish you might know it. This is Christ’s world. This world we buy and sell, and kick around, and lord it over, and take by force of arms. This world is Christ’s world. This is His world, He made it, and He owns it all.
So that Jesus Christ made this world, and He made the very atoms out of which Mary was made. And He made and created the very atoms out of which His own body was made. And He made the very straw upon which He lay in the manger. Oh, I’d like to have seen the baby Jesus.
I dedicated a little redheaded girl here, and if I could have just buttered her, I could have swallowed her in one gulp. And I’d like to have seen the baby Jesus. I’ll never see Him now, because death has no more dominion over Him, and He’s a grown full-bloomed human, now glorified yonder, at the right hand of the Majesty.
But He was there nevertheless, that baby Jesus, lying on a manger. And He, the baby, had made the manger, and had made the straw, and had made the beasts that were there, and then had made this little town, and all that it was, and had made the very star that looked down, this one. He came unto His own.
Now, our Lord Jesus Christ is not a guest here. I wish we might figure that out. They say that a lot of people make a great deal out of God being their guest, or God being their senior partner. They run the business, and their name’s on it, but God’s their partner. Make a great deal of that nonsense. And the quicker we find it out, the better, and stand up on our two hind feet, and dare to tell people that we don’t want to patronize Jesus Christ. It’s time we stop it. They write nice books, and around Christmas time, even the newspapers come out with a fawning over Jesus Christ our Lord.
He doesn’t need your patronage, brother, and he doesn’t need your pity. He’s not a guest here. He’s the host, and we are the guests. We are here by His sufferance. We are here by His kindness, and we are here because He’s made us and brought us here. And this world is His world, and He can do what He will with His world, and no one can upbraid Him. He can do what He wills with life, and He can do what He wills in death, and He can do what He wills in nature, and He can do what He wills in that mighty cataclysmic overthrow that we call judgment.
He has a lot of apologists in the day in which we live. A lot of people are apologizing for the Lord Jesus Christ. I think we ought to start apologizing for the Lord Jesus and start apologizing for ourselves. He doesn’t need your apology, and he doesn’t need your defense.
And when I run onto a book where somebody is apologizing for the Lord Jesus Christ and proving he isn’t so bad after all, I always toss it aside. I won’t waste my eyes on it. Jesus Christ, who made the world in which we live, and whose fingers formed the crooked serpent and studded the stars in the sky yonder, made this solid ground on which we stand and upon which we build our temporary buildings.
He doesn’t need me to run around apologizing and rushing in, taking His part and saying, now just a minute, just a minute. He hardened Pharaoh’s heart, but it doesn’t mean that. He sent judgment upon Sodom and Gomorrah, but it doesn’t quite mean that. It means something else. It means exactly that, ladies and gentlemen. And when God Almighty turned Lot’s wife into a pillar of salt, it means exactly that. And when the Bible tells us there’s a hell where the wicked will go, it means exactly that. It doesn’t mean something else.
So, my business is not to apologize for the Lord Jesus, nor patronize Him, or talk down to Him, or go to an altar in order to come out and be loyal to Him. No, no. My business is to come crawling to His feet, a sinner, filled with sores, and say, touch me and make me whole.
Then I stand upon my feet, as I said over the radio yesterday morning, no longer to crawl like a spaniel crawling down the sidewalk on your tummy, but to stand up and look into the heavens and say, I was once a sinner, but I’m redeemed, and the Lord has saved me, and now I’m His child, and I can keep my chin up now, and both or three of them, or as many as I got, some of you, to one won’t be enough, but you can keep them up, because you belong to God, you belong to Christ.
But in the meantime, we’re not going to patronize Him. I absolutely will not apologize for Him. Here He is, He’ll take care of Himself. He made this world, He made the very bricks out of which this building is built, and He made the world in which we live, and so it’s His world. It’s my Father’s world, it belongs to the Trinity, and it’s not mine. And I live here by the good grace of God, and everything I handle, and touch belongs to my Father.
And these lovely flowers, they belong to God, they don’t belong to me. And all the air, and the winds, and the clouds, and the corn, and the waving wheat, and the tall noble forests, and the flowing rivers, they’re all his. He was, He was in, He made, and all things were made by Him. And He came unto His own world, and His own world received Him not. That is, His own people received Him not, but His own world, that nature received Him. His own things received Him.
It was the winter wild, while the heaven-born child all meanly wrapt in the rude manger lies; nature, in awe to him, had doffed her gaudy trim, with her great Master so to sympathize and we sang this morning about nature smiles and owns her King.
And so, when our Lord Jesus came, all nature went out to greet Him. All nature met Him. The star led the wise men from the east, and the cattle in the stall didn’t bother Him. As He lay, little eight or nine- or ten-pound baby Jesus wasn’t harmed by the beasts that nibbled straw from around His tender little legs and arms. They knew Him.
G. Campbell Morgan, in that great book of his called “The Crisis of the Christ,” points out that when Jesus went into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil, he was there forty days and forty nights and was with the wild beasts. Remember that. And Morgan said that there was wrong conception about that, Jesus being with the wild beasts, that we pitied Him and wondered how he could ever stand it to be with the wild beasts and think those wild beasts might have been wanting to attack Him, and he had to have angelic protection.
And Campbell Morgan said properly, no, it was not true. The wild beasts recognized their King, and they crept to his feet and licked them, no doubt, and lay down beside. They recognized their Lord and their Maker. And the very tawny lion shook his mane and kneeled beside his Savior. And the very bear that might have devoured another man knelt and whined at the feet of the man who was fasting forty days and forty nights.
So that instead of pitying Jesus for those terrible hours or days spent with the wild beasts, we ought to remember that he was perfectly safe there, for not a sharp claw would tear the skin of the man who was God, and not a fang would rip the body of the man who was God, for He came to His own and His own received Him.
And the wind blew for His pleasure, and He waxed and grew in body and in wisdom. And the very earth on which He trod smiled, and the stars at night looked down on His humble carpenter’s cottage. And the winds and the rain and the snow were all His friends. He was in harmony with nature.
I believe it’s entirely possible to be more in harmony with nature than we are if we were Christians as we ought to be. St. Francis was in harmony with nature, and the world has wondered at Him. And some have laughed, and others have scoffed, and others have raised their eyebrows and wondered if he was right in his mind. But St. Francis was so completely yielded to God, and so completely and fully taken up by the presence of the Holy Ghost, that all nature was his friend. And it says of Cicero that the stars in their courses fought against Him. And if the stars in their courses fought against the enemy, then the same stars in their courses fought in favor of the friend of God.
And I believe it is possible to be so tuned to God that the very stars in their courses are on our side. And nature smiles and owns her king. God, when He made Adam, said, now you be over the whole business. And sin came in and wrecked it all. And when sin is removed, and I can see why St. Francis could preach to the birds, and call the rain and the wind his friends, and the moon his sister, and live a delighted life, because the world, God’s blessed world, received Him. It’s only sin we have to be ashamed of, my friends, only sin. It is not this world that God made, it is sin. And if you were to take sin out of the world, there wouldn’t be a thing to be ashamed of, nor a thing to be afraid of. He took sin out of the world.
If sin could suddenly be extracted from the world, suddenly extracted from the world, all of it taken out, there wouldn’t be another sick man in all the wide world. There wouldn’t be an insane man behind any bars. There wouldn’t be a criminal in any jail. There wouldn’t be a polio victim crippling around on crutches. There wouldn’t be an old man of days bent with his cane waiting for the undertaker.
There wouldn’t be a man with a cold in his nose trying to preach. And there wouldn’t be sleepy people wishing he’d quit. And there wouldn’t be any evidence anywhere of evil. If we could take sin out of the world, you could leave your house unlocked. Thank God, go to bed and leave it unlocked. And you could carry your money around your pants pocket. And you wouldn’t have to put it in a bank behind bars with a cop to watch it. And you could walk anywhere in this city and not be afraid of getting attacked, if you could take sin out of the world.
So instead of apologizing for God and Christ, we ought to begin to apologize for humanity and apologize for our sins. But remember that He came unto His own and His own received Him. And Jesus was never sick an hour. And nothing was ever wrong with Him, but he carried a perfect body to Calvary.
Surely He bore our sicknesses, but they were poured on Him. They were poured on Him. God Almighty took all that swill barrel of bubbling, crawling sickness and poured it on the body of Jesus. Just as He took that swill barrel of vicious, venomous juice called sin and poured it on Him when He died. And He died under our sins, and He died under our sicknesses. But He never had any sin and He never had any sickness.
He came unto His own world and His own world smiled and ran to meet their King. The wind and the waves obeyed Him. You say that was a miracle. Well, maybe it was a miracle. It looked like a miracle from our standpoint, but it wasn’t a miracle for Jesus. He said to the wind, shh. And the wind looked up and saw who it was and shh. And He said to the waves, be still, and they saw who it was, and they got soft and still as a mirror.
It wasn’t any miracle; it was just God Almighty acting like God in a world that received Him. But when it comes to people, you have another story on your hands. His own people received Him not.
And that reminds us of the famous hymn that says every prospect pleases and only man is vile. His own people received Him not. Now there were the Jews, the nation of Israel, and they were of all people the best prepared to receive Him because they had the call in Abraham, they had the covenant with the fathers, they had the revelation, they had the tradition, they had the prophets, they had the temple worship.
They had their holidays and their anniversaries and their psalms and their prophets and they were of all people best placed to receive Him when he came. But they failed to recognize Him and that was the greatest blunder in the history of mankind without any doubt. The greatest moral blunder in the history of the world was when He came to His own world and the world received Him and He came to His own people and His own people rejected Him.
The very caterpillar on the leaf received his king. But the Jews turned Him away. Oh, the blindness of it all. And I read here in my Bible of that blindness. And God said go and tell this people, hear ye indeed but understand not, and see ye indeed but perceive not. And make the heart of this people fat and make their ears heavy and shut their eyes lest they see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their hearts and convert and be healed. There was the blindness that lay upon them, and they didn’t recognize Him. It was a stroke of God Almighty upon them for sin. And they didn’t recognize Him.
Now why didn’t they receive Him? The world received Him because He was the world’s God. I mean the natural, the God of creation. But why didn’t humanity receive Him? I’ll give you about five reasons why they didn’t briefly. I’m going to cut this sermon short tonight.
First, to receive Jesus when He was here in the world would have meant possible financial loss. The rich young ruler is an example of that. If the rich young ruler had followed Jesus, he’d have had to lose every bit of his property for the Lord told Him to go get rid of it. And they wouldn’t receive Him because they loved their money more than they loved their God.
It would have meant a change in their way of living. And they refused to allow the pattern of their life to be disturbed. It would have meant a thorough inward housecleaning. For Jesus taught the pure in heart should see God. And the mourner should be comforted. And the meek should have the earth. And the merciful should be blessed. And it would have meant a thorough housecleaning inside of them.
And it would have meant an abnegation of self. He said let Him take up his cross and follow me.
And it would have meant faith in the unseen. They’d have had to throw themselves out on God. And that’s why they didn’t receive Him.
Now, in closing, it’s very satisfying for us to belabor the Jews. But I remember a word of Jesus, take the beam from thine own eye and then shalt thou see clearly to remove the moat from thy brother’s eye. And it’s very comforting for us here 2,000 years removed to preach about the Jews that received Him not.
And it’s a kind of a safety valve for us, a red herring that we draw across our trail to take God’s eyes off our own sins. And to solve our own conscience by reminding ourselves that the Jews received Him not. But I warn you against any kind of such self-deception as that.
Who more than you who listen to me should receive Him? You have 2,000 years of tradition behind you that the Jew didn’t have. You have a revelation that the Jew didn’t have. He had the Old Testament; you have the Old Testament and the New. You have information the old Jew didn’t have. You have light the old Jew didn’t have. You have opportunities the old Jews didn’t have.
And you have an urgency by the presence of the Holy Ghost the old Jews didn’t have. I do not think for one minute that we ought to spend our time belaboring the Jew, comforting our own carnal hearts by saying He came to His own world and the Jews did not receive Him. We would only be building the sepulchers of our fathers, as Jesus said.
And we would be as bad as they that slew the prophets. We had better look to our own hearts. Why do not we receive Him? The answer is, it might mean financial loss to some people if they receive Jesus. There are people in business in Chicago, that’s lucrative business, and if they ever received Jesus they’re going to have to get out of that business. But, you say I don’t think so. I think they can just glorify God where they are.
Well, I admit that there’s a lot of that going on now. No matter what you’re doing you just say I’m a Christian now and then you begin to testify where you are. I have suggested that if things keep on going from bad to worse in evangelical circles, the time will come pretty soon when we’ll print John 3:16 at the bottom of a beer mug so that and when a fellow drains it and looks at the bottom he’ll see salvation shining out at him. And halfway houses will have texts that the girls give out with their favorites. Pretty soon if we don’t stop somewhere if somebody doesn’t get a hold of us that’s what we’re going to do. And brother there are some things you can’t do and be a Christian and you might as well settle that now.
And the Jews knew it and so they rejected Jesus. They wanted to do what they wanted to do and they rejected Jesus because they knew they couldn’t do it if they received Him. And there are people with all this revelation and all this light and information and yet you will not tonight receive Him whom the very angels and stars and rivers received. Because they know they’ve got to give up something that could mean financial loss.
It’ll mean a change in your way of living and some of you people aren’t going to change your way of living. You’re going to go underground. I’m sure that’s all my preaching does to some people, it just drives them underground. I shell the woods occasionally, you know or somebody that has a bigger gun than mine, Brother Ravenhill or somebody will shell the woods. And you all pull your ears back and go underground but you don’t change your ways any and God knows you don’t change your ways.
They outlawed the Communist Party now they say they’ve driven them underground. But a communist underground, that is provided that you don’t mean actually lying under there in a coffin is more dangerous than a communist up on top of the ground.
And it’s just as bad to be an underground sinner as it is to be an overt sinner. You won’t change your ways I know it. And there must be a thorough inward housecleaning before He’ll come.
I’ll tell you one thing about that manger, brother, it’s clean. Be sure of that. Little Mary didn’t go and have her baby in a dirty manger. And be sure that one little thing was simple. It was plain, it was crude, but it was clean. They put fresh straw down for that event. Don’t you think they didn’t? Joseph never would have let her lie there and her little baby lie there in a dirty crib. That was a clean place. And Jesus never went any place where it wasn’t clean. He won’t inhabit any place that isn’t clean. Be sure of that.
Some people would rather have the dirt than they would to have the Son of God. They’d rather have the darkness than come to the light. That’s why they don’t receive Him. They’ve got the Old Testament, they’ve got the New Testament, they’ve got the hymn book, they’ve got churches, they’ve got radio preachers, they’ve got evangelists. They have opportunities, they have light, they have information, but they won’t receive Him. Because if they do they’re going to have to clean up. Some people won’t clean up, just won’t do it. They don’t want their houses to be cleaned.
A woman came to Dr. A.B. Simpson one time, and she said, Dr. Simpson, I am possessed of a demon. It’s a male demon. I’m possessed of a demon, and I want you to pray for me. And Dr. Simpson said, all right, sister, get down here on your knees. And when he prayed, they say sometimes when he started to pray, you felt that heaven was bending. And he began to pray, and in a commanding voice he began to order the demon to go out of her. She grabbed his shoulder and said, don’t, don’t, Dr. Simpson, I love Him. I love Him. I love Him. She was in love with a demon lover.
That’s the only example I ever heard of that. You ever hear anything like it? It’s not the most terrible thing I ever heard, I suppose. But there’s a lot of that going on. We’re in love with sin, and it’s inside of us. And if Jesus Christ comes in, He’ll run it out. And we’d rather have sin than have Jesus.
We’d rather have buzzards perch in our hearts than we would have the Dove to come in. But remember one thing, as long as the buzzards are there, the Dove will never descend. Remember that. As long as the world dirt remains in our hearts, Jesus Christ will never come in. He came unto His own, and His own people would not receive Him because they loved dirt. They loved inward dirt, moral dirt, respectability, sure.
You wear a Hart, Schaffner and Marx clothes, and Florsheim shoes, and drive a $2,200 car, and have a modern kitchen, modern bathroom, modern everything, and live by a push button. But inside your heart there is a filthy pool, and Jesus Christ won’t come in until you drain it off. He won’t do it. He came unto His own people, and His own people received Him not. And it’s the same thing today. We love our demon lover.
And when the Lord says, all right, I’ll help you, we’ll get rid of this mess, we say, no, Jesus, no, no, I love that mess. I was brought up in it. I want to be respectable, and I want to be outwardly clean, and I want my, the sepulcher of my life to be carefully polished and painted.
But I don’t want to get rid of the dead man’s bones. I love those dead man’s bones, and I don’t want to get rid of them. Some of you clean, respectable, well-groomed people will leave this church tonight, and you’ll take dead man’s bones out with you in the sanctuary of your soul. And you wouldn’t let Jesus Christ come in and cleanse the temple. You’d rather have the swine there.
Ah, how satisfying to blame the Jew. But think of ourselves tonight. Let Him take up his cross and follow me, and we don’t want to do that. Nobody wants to be that serious. Mr. McAfee was telling me about an Australian from New Zealand. Australian, who, a medical doctor, who preaches against communism, lectures against communism, and he knows his subject. He said he’s debated with communists, and they say to Him, Mr. Schwartz, you can’t understand communism until you get over into it.
He said they have to have a kind of a conversion into it. And I’ve been saying for a long time, long before I heard that, that communism is a religion. You don’t reason yourself into it, you get converted.
That’s why they do such extravagant, strange things. That’s why they obey to the death. They’ve given themselves over to a religion. They’ve been converted to communism. It’s the devil’s religion. And in a great many ways it parallels Christianity, only it’s on the devil’s side. And they become as fanatical and zealous, they give up their home, their family, and turn on their country and their friends and their very lives.
And here we have the Light of the world, the very Son of God, whose bright shining will burn as a leaf the devilish religion of communism. And we can’t get up enough steam or enthusiasm even to keep from looking bored when we talk about it. I wonder if we’ve been converted at all.
You can’t understand Christianity until you’re in it. You can’t stand back and look on and understand, you must be converted over into it by a miracle. Then you’ll understand Christianity. Then you understand God and Christ. But until Jesus Christ is received, in miracle-working transforming power into the light, there never can be any salvation or any understanding of the things of God.
All nature received Him. The very brown cutworm that crawls across the road. Stormy winds fulfilling his word. Praise Him all ye stars of light, says the Holy Ghost. Praise Him ye trees and forests and hills and mountains, says the Holy Ghost. The beasts of the field shall glorify me, says the Holy Ghost. And all nature sings to meet their Lord. And little, hard, selfish, sinful man rejects the Son of God.
Brethren, this is more terrible than atom bombs. This is more terrible than wars to death. More terrible than diseases. This is terrible.
What shall we answer Him? When very nature receives Him, and our hard little hearts say, no, I want that money, I want that girl, I want that fame, I want that job, I want that pleasure, I want, I want, always I want. And the Son of God stands outside, his own received Him not. It’s the tragedy of mankind, my brethren.
If some Shakespeare, some Aeschylus, some Goethe could write it, it’s the vast, illimitable, boundless, fathomless tragedy of mankind, that we loved our sin more than we loved our God. And the world around us sang when He came and will sing again when He comes in glory. And our hard little hearts say, no, this is the tragedy, I say.
No Faust, no Julius Caesar ever was as stark and as terrible as this. We rejected Him from our hearts, because we want our own way. You’ll have your own way, and Jesus Christ will park on the sidewalk outside, and the stars will sympathize, and the birds, and the worms, and the cattle, and you’ll let Him stand.
Oh, Jesus, you’ve stood outside so many hearts so long. You’ve stood outside so many homes and businesses so long. How much longer?
Dear people, we ought to do something about it tonight. We ought to be ashamed of ourselves. And we ought to open the doors of our hearts and let Him in. What about you? What about your soul? He came unto His own world, and it received Him.
But He came unto His own people, and they rejected Him. How terrible.