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“He Came Unto His Own and His Own Received Him Not“

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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.

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“The Great Double-Cross”

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The Great Double Cross

Pastor and author A.W. Tozer

November 25, 1956

And when they had bound him and led Him away and delivered into Pontius Pilate the governor. Then Judas, which had betrayed Him, when he saw that He was condemned, that is the Jesus was condemned, repented himself, and brought again the 30 pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders saying, I have sinned in that I have betrayed innocent blood. And they said, what is that to us? See thou to that. And he cast down the pieces of silver in the temple and departed and went and hanged himself. And the chief priests took the silver pieces and said, It is not lawful to put them into the treasury because it is the price of blood. And they took counsel and bought with them the potter’s field to bury strangers in. For that field was called the Field of Blood unto this day.

Now, in this text, we have described one of the most deeply emotional and significant moments in the history of the world. The most important nation in the world, for many reasons, was Israel. And if you would challenge that, then I would read to you these words of Paul, what advantage then hath the Jew or what profit is there in circumcision much every way? Chiefly because that unto them were committed the oracles of God. And then he also says over here, that who are Israelites; to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law and the service of God and the promises; Whose are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed forever. Amen.

Paul believed as all the Old Testament indicates and his Bible teachers admit that the most important nation in the world was Israel. And now at this moment of her greatest trial, when the one for whom she had been called into existence, was standing on trial. And now this great and important nation, blind to the presence of the Messiah, alienated from her God by sin and unbelief, and allied with the greatest pagan empire in the world, allied for a purpose. She hated that empire. But she was allied with that empire for a purpose to destroy a man. A man who had done no evil, no harm, and had done only good all the days of his life.

Now this quiet, meek, harmless Man, this pure, clean, harmless Man stands before them, and they join dirty hands with the pagan empire to destroy this Man. And back of it all now, inciting and arousing and inflaming and provoking and instigating and urging on, there was the cunning, sinister and incredibly wicked being we call the devil. Unbelievably cruel, I say he is, and with restrained cold ferocity. He played nation against nation and man against man as a master on the chessboard, that old serpent, the devil, with his unbelievable cruelty, that one we call a serpent and the dragon. He was out to destroy this Man, but he was unseen and unsuspected and he was working to destroy the Man, but along with the Man, the very nation who was also trying to destroy the Man and unknown to them, the very empire itself. That was the work of the devil. And in order to do it, he had to have a man that he could use. His cruel work of destruction required that he had a man.

And so, he searched for a tool, a vehicle, a victim that he could use and he usually manages to find one. There is the frightening thing about human history, when this wicked one, this shrewd, cunning and all but infinitely wise and infinitely wicked being, sets out to destroy something or someone good. He can’t come directly to it. So, he has to work through a tool and he usually finds a tool.

If Judas had only known that his treachery against Jesus was the suggestion of the devil, he would have recoil in horror. He had been brought up in the church. He had been brought up among the Jews, He had heard the Torah read from his youth. And they had sung, he had heard the songs of David sung as they mounted and sung the songs of ascent on Passover days. Judas was a religious man. But he had no idea that his treachery was not his own suggestion, but was by the instigation of the devil, and that he was being used as a utensil by that devil to do something else, and then that he would be thrown cynically aside, when his usefulness was ended. I say if he had known that, the history of Judas and part of the New Testament might have been different, but he didn’t know that. That was part of the deception and the treachery that he never found it out. It is part of the shrewd wisdom of that sinister, dark spirit, that while we’re being betrayed, we don’t know we’re being betrayed. So, Judas betrays Christ with a kiss.

Now here, it seems to me adds something to all this, that Judas didn’t hate Jesus. Nobody could have lived with Jesus three years and hated Jesus. And something of the way they lived in those days was indicated by the fact that when he told this empire with whom he was allied in black conspiracy to destroy Jesus, when he told them about the sign, he said, the one whom I shall kiss.

Now kissing Jesus certainly was not an unpleasant thing. Nor do I think it was an unusual thing. Jesus was 33 years old. He was the most perfect example of manhood since Adam. His lips were clean. There was no smell of a foul habit upon him. And he never had uttered an unclean word in his life. And his beautiful lips had spoken only kind words of forgiveness and healing and pardon and deliverance. And there he stood in his beautiful manhood. I do not think that kissing Jesus would have been unpleasant. Rather, I think that it would have been a most pleasant thing. And surely it was not unusual because John, many times rested his head affectionately on Jesus’ bosom. And there was nothing especially unusual about this kiss of Judas. He simply said, the one I shall go up and kiss. Obviously, it was not an unusual thing, I repeat.

So, Judas was not mad at our Lord and he didn’t hate him. He betrayed him for two ulterior reasons. He did not betray Him because he said to himself, I want this Jesus to get what’s coming to Him. No, he betrayed him because he wanted to get financial gain and he wanted to secure public favor. And my friends, those who betray Jesus today, I don’t think there are many of them in civilized society that betray Jesus because they hate him. I do not think that. I think they betray Him because there is an ulterior motive. They want something that the treacherous betrayal will bring them. That’s all Judas wants. If Judas could have gotten the public favor of the Empire and the money, he never would have betrayed Jesus. He probably would have run. He was a coward. He would have slunk away like the rest of them did. But he had nothing against Jesus, that proved by his subsequent conduct.

When after he had seen them lead Jesus away, the wave of self-condemnation and warm affection for Jesus came over him and he rushed boldly into the presence of the Pharisees and scribes and priests and said, here take this money back. I’ve been a fool. I’ve been a wicked man. I’ve betrayed this innocent blood. That’s the way it says, this innocent blood. I’ve betrayed this innocent man. Why, there came over him in a wave of memory, all the healings that he’d seen and the deliverances and all the kind, pure words and the deep friendly smiles and the pleasantnesses that they’d had together and the moments that they had stopped to eat some simple meal beneath a tree, or laying down on the moss to sleep, and wait the morning when they could go on their journey. So that Judas had nothing against Jesus. He wasn’t betraying Him for that reason. He had two ulterior reasons, I repeat, he wanted money and he wanted to be popular, and it is so today.

People are betraying Jesus who have nothing against Jesus, who even will speak kindly about Jesus. There are people singing about Jesus on the radio now who have sold out and walked out at church choirs. Walked out of church choirs, who have been leading sopranos or tenor solos or basses. And they’ve walked out of church choirs and sold themselves to the beer interests and are singing beer anthems now to sell beer to the public. They have nothing against Jesus. And in tender moments, they speak and think kindly of Jesus. And their reason for betraying Him is not that they hated him. They wanted money. And there are people who have betrayed Jesus because they wanted to be popular with their high school crowd. And they have nothing against him. And if anybody said anything against Jesus, they’d fight for him, they’d stand up and say, well, now, I’m not a Christian. I’m not very good. But I know better than that. They defend Jesus, if it ever came to that. They have a kindly feeling toward Him. But they want to be popular with their crowd. They want to stand well with the kids, or they want to stand well with the business people with whom they work or in the office force where they work or the little group in their social circle.

So they betray Jesus for popularity and to keep friends and keep from making enemies. It looks like a pretty good motive. It looked like a pretty good motive to please the priests and the elders and the rest of them. It looked like a pretty good thing for Judas to be tolerant and want to get on the side of the religious people. But it led Judas to betray Jesus with a treacherous kiss, an evil kiss, the evilest kiss that ever was given or received from the day that Cain kissed his brother and murdered him, it was the kiss Judas gave to Jesus. And yet it was not because he hated Jesus. It was because there was something he wanted that was ulterior and not directly related, something outside of Jesus that betraying Jesus would get him.

And there is our problem in the world today, and that’s what’s wrong today. People who become Christians and then slip away and go back to the world don’t do it because they hate Jesus or found in Him He wasn’t what they thought He was. They apologize to their own hearts and pray and say these who go on to the air and sing for the devil. They want the money and they want the popularity. But they’re very happy if somebody, knowing the weakness of Christians and the weakness of the religious public generally, will sing a song about Jesus. They’re glad to do it. And they solve their own conscience a little bit and say, well, I’m getting a little chance to witness. Witnessing nothing. They’re getting a chance to throw a little kiss to Jesus, while they sell Him out and treacherously betray Him. If they had followed Him and wanted to continue to follow Him, they’d be back singing in that church choir and teaching a Sunday school class and attending missionary conventions, or they would be out on the field or they’d be in school or they’d be supporting somebody that is. But they couldn’t stand it. And so they’re out there and they’ve betrayed Jesus with a kiss

My brother and sister, this is the cruel double-cross. For when the man Judas had been overcome with self-accusation and felt so deeply condemned, he raced back with that money and said, here, take it. I’ve betrayed innocent blood. And they said to him, what is that to us? See thou to that. And they tempted Judas to betray Christ and then they turned around and betrayed Judas. I say there was the cruelest double-cross in history.

Out in the state of Ohio many years ago, I guess twenty-five. I haven’t seen anything like it traveling through there since. But a few years back when automobiles were not as plentiful and the problems not as great as they are now, they had a practice there. Obviously, the Ohio Highway Commission had arranged it, that when anyone was killed on the highway at a crossing or on a curve or at a crossroads, they would put up a white cross to mark, no markings, just a white cross. And everybody knew I have to slow down here. There’s a cross. A man was killed here.

I once saw a place where five crosses stood beside the highway. Five people had died there. I guess they gave it up later as a bad job and quit. But the theory was that if a man driving along a little too fast, or a little carelessly, saw a white cross, or two white crosses, or three white crosses on the highway, he would say to himself suddenly, oh, this is terrible. This is placed where men die and he would take his foot off the accelerator and would slow down and thus save lives. I suppose it did work for I know it always sobered me when I saw white crosses on the way

Well, I tell you that on the high road of history, my brethren, there stand two black crosses where an apostle fell to mark the place where an apostle in a weak hour sold and betrayed his own highest interests and betrayed His Savior with a kiss. It is the double cross, the two black crosses. And you can come down history from the day Cain murdered Abel, I say, to this present our and you will not find anything as cynically, cruelly frighteningly terrible as the double-cross that the Jews pulled on poor, dumb Judas, who had listened to his heart which had listened to the devil. And he had made himself a utensil, a vehicle; a cheap, weak agent for stronger ones. And he had pulled their chestnuts out of the fire, and then when they no longer could use him, they said, what is that to us? See thou to that, and turn their backs upon him.

And I tell you, I have read considerable in my time, considerable amounts of literature. I think I’m fairly familiar with the writings of Geake and Schiller in German. And I have read Escola and Sophocles in Greek, and I have read all of it. And I have read Plutarch and I have read Dickens and I have read Dostoevsky the Russian and Zola and Victor Hugo the Frenchman, and I have read Shakespeare and the rest of the English, those dramatists and novelists who know how to make things wonderful and terrible and present dramatically and colorfully the deeds of man on earth. But I think I can say without any fear that I shall be successfully contradicted, that nowhere in all the literature of all the geniuses of the world, is there anything so drably unqualifiedly, frighteningly terrible as these words, what is that to us? See thou to that.

And we have the picture here of a little frightened man who for love of money and popularity, had betrayed his Savior and treacherously sold his Redeemer to the murderers. Now this little frightened man, fated to exist forever, and can never cease to be, will always have a memory and always will be able to recall his deed of shame. And always, always he’ll remember the double-cross, always and yet this little man can’t escape. Earth and heaven are against him, and even his friends with whom he had whispered and laughed before time. For don’t think they managed to get Judas just by walking up in the business like proposition and asking him. They cultivated him. They cultivated him behind Jesus’ back.

And these Jews, they stroked their silky beard and flung their phylacteries out to show how religious they were. And they cultivated Judas behind the back of the Savior. And they laughed with him and no doubt invited him to lunch and we’re kind to him and patted his back and whispered to him and they were friends, this little frightened man. And now they turned against him and say, what is that to us? Who are you anyhow? See thou to that. And the stars in their courses, he cursed upon his frightened head. And he rushes out, puts a rope around his neck and hangs himself.

And the Scripture tells us, that poor, foolish, fool that he was, he couldn’t even commit suicide with dignity. His rope broke and he fell on the rocks on the precipice below and tore open abdomen and disemboweled himself. As though the grade wide to heaven above were to say, the blackest double-cross in history has got to have the messiest, most undignified, cheapest death in history. So, there was a man who couldn’t even commit suicide and make it stick. And there was a vehicle, a utensil, a tool, an agent and didn’t know it till the last minute. He didn’t know it, my brother.

And so, he went out, this man Judas, used by that, that incredibly wicked devil, that unbelievably, cynical, cruel dragon. In order to destroy a man would ruin another man. And that picture of a little dark man; why doesn’t some artists paint it? I don’t believe in painting pictures of Jesus. For nobody knows what Jesus looked like. But I could see how a man could paint a picture, and if I had the skill in my right hand to do it, I’d paint the picture of a little, frightened man with the stars above looking down darkly upon him and with the earth frightened as he ran. And with the very rope, refusing to cooperate and the sharp, jagged rock below, telling the story on the highway of the black double-cross, where he betrayed his Savior and was betrayed in turn, a fool of his own lusts and a victim of his own desires. That was Judas and I think I could make a picture out of it.

Now, my friend, Judas has long gone to his own place which is perdition, but the world and sin and the devil are still today betraying men. That was not once for all, that was but a sample dramatized for us, so to speak. But it’s going on all the time. And the world will take a Christian, remember, egged on, instigated by that, that cunning devil, incited and inflamed by the devil, the world will treat a Christian. They will use him. They will stand in his way. They will tear him down. They’ll lead him astray with the professions of friendship and laughter and bravado and hospitality and back-slapping in jokes and flattery. They’ll tear the young Christian down. They’ll steer him away. They’ll shut up his testimony. They will make him ashamed to pray when they eat in the restaurant. They will make him ashamed to carry his New Testament.

And he sneaks to church Sundays and hopes nobody will know that all week he was a coward who was betraying Jesus because he wanted to stand well with the people in the school. The businessman will come to church and try to look pious on Sunday morning. He’ll try to forget that all week long he kept as quiet as a mouse lest his testimony offend somebody. Or that he went along with a shady deal, because he was a member of a partnership that was busy doing shady deals within the law. And so, he kept his mouth shut and said it wasn’t his fault and tried to soothe his conscience. But he’s a vehicle. He’s being used as a utensil. And when he’s old and arrested and battered, and the devil can’t use him anymore, he’ll throw him cynically aside and say, what’s that to me? You see to that. And in that black and awful hour when there appears the black double-cross over the man’s life who said he was a Christian, who gave to missions and gave to the church and brought his family to Sunday school. But he’s a coward and fearful in his daily living.

A young fellow who on the high school football team is ashamed not to do what the rest of them do. And ashamed to let them know that he’s a clean man. The girl with her crowd, shamed to testify and witness, betraying Jesus to stay popular with the crowd.

Oh, W.H. Meyer, that great English poet, in his great piece called St. Paul, he prays, God forbid that I should fall into the treason, the seeking and honor which they gave not Thee. And yet there are those who today, even in Alliance churches, seek honor from the world that they never gave Jesus. And so they betray him and the devil has the black double-cross over their heads waiting for the end. And after they fall into a pit, the world turns its back and says what do we got to do with that? See thou to that.

I say that not in all the literature. Shakespeare never thought of anything as tragic, as terrible, as cynically, bestially cruel as this, that after they’d pulled a man into a pit they could walk away rubbing their hands and say we’ll take this money and buy a potter’s field. We’ll give it to the poor. We’ll cut the corners on this deal and cheat a little, but we’ll give two tenths of it to the Lord. The Lord doesn’t want your dirty two tenths. The Lord will take a whole lot less and bless you for it. But He doesn’t want a dirty two tenths. And he doesn’t want anything that comes anyway but a clean and a holy way. And yet businessmen and professional men and even preachers are willing to be used by Satan. What is that to us? See thou to that.

Let may say to you and particularly you young people. No one is ever your friend who speaks lightly of your Savior. Nobody is ever your friend, no matter how warm and flattering and affectionately that he or she may seem to be. They’re not your friend if they speak lightly of your Savior. They got their attitude and philosophy somewhere else. They got it from this cynically cruel old dragon who with his restrained, cold hatred, he’s out to destroy you and everyone that follows Jesus. No one is ever your friend who criticizes your church. No one is ever your friend who invites you to sin. No one is ever your friend who laughs when you pray. Nobody is your friend who tells you off-colored jokes. No buddy is your friend. No one is your friend, they’re utensils, they’re tools, they’re vehicles, they’re instruments of Satan for your destruction.

And the same Satan that used a weak Judas and then betrayed him and left him to suicide and hell, that same Satan is out to get you. He knows your name and your number. He knows more about you than you know about yourself. He knows where we live. He knows you and he’s going to destroy you as he tried to destroy that good Man, Whose kind, kind words had raised the dead and healed the sick and forgiven harlots. He was out to destroy Him and he did, and he did.

But I see another cross. And over the highway where Judas traveled and where Judas died, I see standing the great double-cross. But I see another cross, not black, not white, but red. And on that cross, I see your Friend, your real Friend. Judas was nobody’s friend. And the world was not Judas’ friend. And Rome was not Israel’s friend. And Israel was not Judas’ friend. But the Friend was the One who was betrayed, the Man, the kind Man that would be so easy to kiss. That kind Man, 33 years old in perfect health. No anemia, no hardening of the arteries, no prostate difficulties, no fallen arches, no baldness, nothing that men get, even good men get. For He was in perfect health. He was God’s Lamb. And according to the Old Testament, the lamb had to be examined four days for defects, and if there were any defects found in it, it wasn’t used. A perfectly healthy lamb, so He was a perfectly healthy Lamb. And they took that healthy, robust Lamb to the cross and nail Him up there. Not an anemic, bloodless creature to die easily, but a full-blooded Man in the fullness of His young manhood whose veins ran hot and full with purest blood.

There is a fountain wrote Cooper, filled with blood drawn from Emanuel’s veins, and sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains. I say, beside the black crosses that marked the infamy of history I see the red cross and the Lamb dying. A Lamb who isn’t there on that cross now, but who did His work and said, it’s finished and went to the right hand of God, the Father Almighty. And Who when He had by Himself purged our sin, sat down at the right hand of God, from hence waiting till His enemies be made His footstool, there is your Friend.

And there’s the only real friend. The person who tempts you to sin is your enemy, a tool of the devil and not your friend. Your friend is yonder in the glory. Will you turn to your Friend this morning? The only real friend. I’ll be your friend, but I can’t help you see. McAfee would be your friend. We have board members. We have godly people, women and men, they’d help you, but they can’t help, you see. What you need is a Friend that goes beyond, and we can’t go beyond with you. We can only sing when you die and follow you out/ And the undertaker can take three flowers and I can stand with my little book and say, to earth we drop. That’s all we can do with you friend. We’ll be your friend, but we can’t really be your friend because we haven’t the power. But there is a friend. And there He was on that red cross. The black crosses stood alongside of the red cross. One marked the tragic eternal downfall of an apostle, and the other marked the glorious propitiation for the world. Turn to Jesus while you may.