In this sermon, Dr. Bob Jones Sr. shares a story about a little orphan boy in a country school who willingly took the punishment of 10 lashes without his coat for another student. Dr. Jones uses this story to illustrate the concept of vicarious substitution, explaining that Jesus Christ took our place and suffered the lashes of God's judgment on our behalf. He emphasizes the importance of recognizing and appreciating the sacrifice Jesus made for us. Dr. Jones also challenges listeners to have a truly Christian Christmas, rather than just going through the motions of religious traditions.

Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina presents Word of Truth with Dr. Bob Jones, Sr. My friends, I suppose I should begin today by saying Merry Christmas. But everybody says that. Everybody, regardless of who he is, what his religion is, what he believes, infidels, atheists, agnostics, everybody says Merry Christmas. So I think, since I'm a preacher and a Christian, I'll say I hope you have a Christian Christmas. That's a thing very few people ever have, you know. Oh, we have, most of us, a formal religious Christmas. Some of us go to church, you know. That's a matter of form, you know. You can do that. And, of course, some of us sincerely go. God has his people scattered around the world. But, you know, I just wonder sometimes how few of us, just how few really are out and out uncompromisingly on his side. In a recent message I said that if a person isn't willing to stand alone for Jesus Christ, he's not a consecrated Christian. I hope all the little children have a good time and hope all you older people will have the peace of God in your heart. And you can have if you want to. You know, there's no doubt about the fact that Jesus Christ, about 2,000 years ago, came. We know that. He's been in the world. No doubt about the historical Christ. You can't get rid of him, you know. You can accept him or you can reject him, but you just can't get rid of him. You're meeting the issue of, day, what shall I do with Jesus, which is called Christ? The world's never been able to get rid of him. Wars have come and wars have gone. We've had temporary peace and then new battles. Sorrows and troubles and tears and graveyards and funeral dirges and marriages and the smiles of baby. What a world. Sunshine and shatters, but nobody's ever been able to get rid of Jesus. He's still here. There's a story told about a certain founder of a certain school years ago that said he never wanted the name of Jesus Christ mentioned in his school. He said, we're going to leave that name out of this institution. We won't have his name here. But they had the cornerstone, and on that cornerstone they had A.D. a certain date. One day a little girl said, Professor, what does that A.D. mean on the cornerstone of the building? Why, he said, that's the year the school was built. But the A.D. A.D. What's A.D. mean? I said, the school was built. He said, I know the year the school was built, Professor. What does A.D. mean? He said, it means in the year of our Lord. No, you can't get rid of Jesus. The issue keeps coming up. You know, the issue is always the Jesus issue, see. It's not a church issue. We try to make the church issue. We try to make some other kind of issue. We try to make the financial issue. That's not the issue. We try to make the labor or capital issue. But that's not the issue. The issue is Jesus. What will you do with Jesus, which is called Christ? You're facing that today just like everybody else has faced it. All the folks who are dead and gone, if they live wherever there's any gospel preachers, they had to face the issue, and if they wrote any letters and dated those letters, they had to date them A.D. a certain date. Now, he's been here, and he went away, and he's coming back sometime. He'll be back. He said so, and he keeps his word. He said heaven and earth might pass away, but he said my words never pass away, so he'll come back. You're going to have to meet him in the future, too. You've met him in the past. You're meeting him now, and you're going to meet him in the future. You'll never get rid of him. All through eternity, you'll have some relation to Jesus Christ. You'll either be related to him in fellowship in heaven under a cloudless sky, or you'll be related to him as his enemy in the torments of the damned. You can't get rid of him. Now, we know he came. There's no question about that. That fact's accepted in the world. But the question comes now, how did he come? Well, you know, people tell you all sorts of things, you know. Some people say he was conceived out of wedlock. Some people say Joseph was his father. Some people say he's just human, and yet he had a spark of divinity in him, and maybe was God manifest in the flesh. But you couldn't know how Jesus came if God hadn't told you. God said he was born of a virgin. Back in the Old Testament, in Isaiah, the prophet said this will be a sign to you. When you see this sign, you can know what's happened. This will be a sign a virgin shall be with child. So his mother was a virgin. He had no human father. He had a human mother, but God was his father, and his mother was a virgin. They're telling you today it doesn't matter about that. And they blaspheme the name of the Son of God and trample on the authority of the Bible when they say it. So we know how he came. And we know approximately when he came. It doesn't make any special material difference about the matter anyhow. It's not so much when he came, but from God's time, he came on time. In the fullness of time, he came. In the fullness of time, just as God's clock of eternity was ticking, at the proper tick of the clock, in the fullness of time, he came. Now, why did he come? Well, I couldn't know that if God hadn't told me. You couldn't either. Why did he come? He said that he came into this world to die. He said that. He just kept saying over and over, my now has not yet come, my now has not yet come. And then one time when he stood in the shadow of the cross, he said, this is it. This is why I came. He came to die. Other people have come to live. He came to die. You know, the most glorious thing in the world is that Jesus Christ died for me. He came to die. He was a man of sorrows acquainted with grief. You know, people try to make Jesus Christ into the kind of person they want him to be. You can't change him. He's the kind of person that God wanted his son to be. He came down the son of the Father, God incarnate. He said, if you've seen me, you've seen the Father. He said, my Father sent me. We are one. And if you want to see God, just look at me. You can see God. And here he is now. God's son. God manifest in the flesh. He came to die on the cross. He didn't come here just to show you how to live. What good would it do for Jesus to say, blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God, when he preached that wonderful sermon on the mount, if he'd have just left us there with our hearts dirty? Well, I can't have a pure heart, unless the blood of God's Son cleanses me from sin. It was necessary for him to die. Nobody could have ever gone to heaven if he hadn't have died. He had to die. So he came to die. And he carried a cross on his bloody back. They tried to kill him, but they couldn't. What was done to Jesus, I've said so many times, would have killed anybody else, but you couldn't kill Jesus. He went up there at the cross and laid his life down. Oh, matchless Son of God, you said it. No man takes my life from me. I laid down on myself. I have power to lay it down. I have power to take it again. And he laid his life down for you and me, for us poor sinners. You know, men have been known to die for friends, but it's divine love that made Jesus die for his enemies. We are enemies of God, naturally. All the theories of men run counter to what the Bible teaches. Man says, save yourself. God says you can't. Man says, work out your own salvation and your own strength. God says you can't do that. By grace you're saved through faith. Having all of yourselves is a gift of God. Of course, you work out in your life what God gives you. You have it in your life, you work it out. But it's not by which less any man should boast. So God came in the person of his Son to die, to pay a debt. You know what it is? The wage of sin is death. Jesus Christ came and died. He took our place. His back was made bare for the lashes that were on that weighed our back. He died in my place. He died on my account. It was a vicarious substitution of death. He stepped into my shoes and let the wrath of God his Father be poured out on him. So we might be saved. I've told the story so many times about that little orphan boy in the country, you know. In the country school years ago when they made the rules that if a fellow did a certain thing, he'd get a certain punishment. One of the rules was if you did a certain thing, you'd get ten lashes out your coat. And then one day a little boy in school, a little orphan boy, came out of a little cabin. His mother was a widow, and the teacher said, Did you violate that rule? He said, Yes, I did. Well, he said, The law says you have to take your coat off, take ten lashes. He said, Don't make me take my coat off. He said, Take it off. We're going to fulfill the law just like it says. The rule's going to be enforced. He said, Please, teacher, you don't understand. He said, Take your coat off. You're going to let the law, it's going to take its effect just like it says. And the little boy said, All right, but you don't understand. He unbuttoned and unbuttoned. Got up to two old rusty safety pins in his collar, and he waked on them and waked on them and waked on them. That far got him out, sitting in his pocket. The little orphan boy turned his back around, and his back was naked. He didn't have on a shirt. And back in the school room, a boy and all the students were watching, but especially one little fellow. And he saw that little naked scrawny back turn around the teacher, and the lash was lifted because that's what the law said. And this boy back there ran to the front and said, Don't hit him. Don't, don't hit that boy. I'll take his whipping. Can't I take it for him? He said, Yes, if you want to, you can. So he took the whipping for the boy. And the boy fell in his arms and loved his friend that took his whipping for him. So one day the lashes of God's judgment will hang over me. Ways of sin is death. Wicked shall be turned to hell with all the nations that forget God. And Jesus Christ, the Son of God, bared his back, and all the lashes of judgment that were to fall upon me fell upon him. With his stripes I am healed. And I love Jesus. I don't know how you feel about it. I celebrate the birthday of somebody I love today. I love him. He's dearer to me than the memory of mother, more precious than any human tie. I wouldn't know how to get along without him. I wonder if he's real to your heart. Remember you were celebrating his birthday. I wonder if he's real to you. Say, if you're not a Christian, why don't you let this day be the day of decision for you? You could do it. You're there in your home. God's been good to you. Maybe you have a happy home. Maybe you had a good year. Maybe God's brought you through great difficulties and troubles. Why don't you trust Jesus Christ and surrender your life to him? You could do it right now, right there in the home. He died for you. There's nothing so wonderful as that. He who knew no sin became sin for you. He took your place. He died in your stead and on your account. And he came to do it. All the years of his life he lived in the shadow of that cross. No wonder he was a man of sorrows and a queen of grief. But he never turned back. He went there and died for you. Now then, while we celebrate his birthday, let's all of us Christians dedicate our lives anew to him. And you who have never known him, won't you trust him as your Savior? God help you do it. Our Father, help us to meet somebody in heaven sometime because of this little talk this morning. May somebody right now trust Jesus Christ and be saved. And someday when we get home, and we're going there someday, by our grace, to see our Lord face to face, help us to meet somebody who can say on his birthday, I celebrate it. I gave him a gift. I gave my heart and my life. He gave everything for me and I came and took the salvation he offered and yielded my life to him. Help us to do it today and to be faithful to him in the days that are ahead. We pray in the precious name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. You've been listening to The Word of Truth with Dr. Bob Jones, Sr., a man who went to his heavenly home after more than 70 years of influencing thousands with his compassion for souls and the Word of God.