In this sermon, the preacher emphasizes the importance of choosing between spending eternity in heaven or hell. He explains that Jesus is the only way to enter heaven and that God came in the flesh to provide salvation for humanity. The preacher highlights Jesus' purpose of giving his life as a ransom for many and offering eternal life to those who believe in him. The sermon also touches on God's plan to send his son into the world and the sinful nature of humanity, which originated from the devil.

When your people, who have been busy all day, are here this evening because they love you, and because they want other people to know you, and they want their own lives to be an example to other people, they want to learn more about how to speak a testimony for other people, and perhaps how to pray more victoriously for other people. Now, Lord, we thank you that you are here in our midst, and we just ask you to take over here, take over, and get glory to yourself. Now, Lord, we read in your word that when people went to the place of worship, and they were on earth, the devil also went, but you cast him out, you didn't allow him to remain there. Lord, you told us to rebuke the devil, and he would flee, and we want to cooperate with you now. Now, you devil, we command you, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, who is power over you, to get away from this building, get away from these grounds. This is not your place, you have no right here. We refuse to permit you or any of your demons to remain in this building. You be gone from here with all your devils. Now, Lord, you've told us if you'll resist the devil, he'll flee. Now, we've resisted him, and we look to you to see to it that he flees. And, Lord, again, we just want to tell you we are enthroning you here to take over and to bring every thought of every person here into captivity to the obedience of Christ, and especially this week. We get glory to your name here this evening, we pray, because we approach thee through the death of our adorable Lord and Savior. Amen. When the missionaries go to China, as we used to do when it was an open country, we were able to answer a question that had been in the minds of the old Chinese teachers for generations. Now, that question was, why did God make people like they are? Proud, selfish, always this big guy, uppermost, what I want and what I think and what I like as I see it. And then, at times, this sinful nature expressing itself in the grossest of sins. Now, why would God make people like that? Now, friends, if you've never had a line of this book, I suspect that question would be uppermost in your mind. Why did God make me like I am? For two or three summers in Chifu when the wars were going on and America didn't want her citizens to become involved in China's so-called Civil War, they had their American consuls to call us to a port. And the missionaries up in North China were at the port where the 7th Fleet of the U.S. Navy from the Philippines went up every summer and they just did their practice up there instead of down in the Philippines. And there was nothing there for them. We just rented a chapel downtown and we missionaries went down every evening and had gospel services. And the men went out on the streets while the women sang and then brought the men. Well, by that time I was 40 years old and I was old enough to go down on the street ahead of time. And if I found young boys, as I did, who'd just had their first trip abroad, and perhaps the first time they'd been ashore, their first taste of life in the Orient, if I could get a hold of them without an old salt, as we called them, a man who'd been in the Navy a long time, they'd listen to me and I'd say, come around to the Gospel Hall and see some American missionaries sing. And they'd have a service around there. If there's an old man there who'd been in a long time and those old salts, as we called them, who'd run their own bodies with sin, I would just delight in taking those young boys ashore the first time and introducing them, taking them down to those red light districts. And I used to go down the street from which the red light districts went off, the streets went off, and I'd just go stop these 18-year-old boys. They'd just break my heart. And I'd say, don't go down there. All those people wanted your money, and you ruined your body and damaged your soul. Don't go down there. And as I said, if I got them by themselves, if they were two young ones, usually not two young ones, but it's the very, I could get them. But they had to be big before that old salt, you know. And he'd, the old man, he'd say, oh, you're nothing but hypocrites, nothing but hypocrites. I have no confidence in any of it. Churches are good for nothing, full of hypocrites. Well, this little young boy would want to be big in the eyes of that old one, and he'd say, the Lord gave me a nature like this, and I'm going to satisfy it. Maybe that boy would have grown up in a Baptist Sunday school and didn't know any better than to think the Lord gave him that devil nature. That devil nature didn't come from the Lord, it came from the devil. Well, I asked the Lord one day to put into my mind an illustration. Remember, I told those that were here Sunday morning, quoted the Chinese and saying, or Sunday evening, perhaps, I've got one picture's worth of a thousand words. And knowing how the old teachers valued visual aids, teaching for the eye, I asked the Lord to put into my mind an illustration that would help me to show those old Chinese scholars how God made man in the beginning, and then what happened after God created man in his own image, and then what the loving Lord did to bring man back into fellowship with himself. And he put the illustration that I have here on the board in my mind. Well, I've been using it for over 50 years, and I'm going to use it just as long as I'm able to speak to anybody. I don't apologize for using it, for you. It came from the Lord himself. Now, all you'll have to learn is just a few words of Chinese, because, you know, the English language is just so awkward. The Chinese just lends itself well, just to put a few words, and the English with its whole long words with several syllables, and they even run the wrong way, you know, crosswise instead of up and down. And I'll just have to leave this in Chinese. But you can learn two, three words of Chinese. By the way, did you hear of that Chinese scholar, university student who was over here, went to a Baptist church, and a Baptist deacon invited him to go home with him for dinner? And that Baptist deacon said to that young Chinese university student, Why do your people read the Bible the wrong way? And he said, My people? Reading the Bible the wrong way? Why, you're the people that read the Bible the wrong way. You read the Bible, mm-mm, impossible, just can't believe it. The Chinese reads his Bible this way. Yes, yes. God said so, that settles it. You've heard of the expression that some of the young people use? God said it, I believe it, that settles it. If God said it, that settles it, whether you believe it or not. When God said it, that settles it. One of my favorite verses is Psalms 119, 89. Forever, O Lord, thy word is settled in heaven. It's settled, and God says it. Now, we begin, of course, with God. And this is a Chinese word up here for God, for God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. And it's very interesting that God the Holy Spirit, that word has three mouths in it, and a mouth represents a personality, three personalities. Now, how did the Chinese know, 700 or 800 years before Christ, from that time on down until Christ came, was China's golden age when it produced all of its scholars, Confucius and the rest of them. How did they know that God was Trinity? Well, they did, and they made these symbols. Now, God created man in the beginning in his own image. Now, this represents a whole human family. This is the word for man or people, the general term for man. They're all black. They're all going down. Well, how did they get like that? Because something happened after Jehovah God created them. The Lord created two people, a man and a woman, like himself. Well, what is God like? God is light. God is glory. Adam and Eve were in God's glory. Of course, they couldn't wear clothes. And the Lord created Adam and Eve, human beings, for fellowship, fellowship. And he created first, of course, the earth, everything absolutely perfect, perfect weather, perfect earth, perfect plant life, perfect animal life, absolutely everything perfect. The Lord said everything was good. And then when he created a man and a woman like himself in his glory, he pronounced them very good. And he came down from heaven in all of his glory and walked and talked and associated with Adam and Eve. Now, we do not know how long that lasted. It should have lasted on forever. There should have never been any graves down here in the world. That was not God's plan. There should never have been any such tearing up homes and having parking with dear ones as we have today when they have to leave this world. Well, the Lord didn't make slaves. It would have been no honor to him for Adam and Eve to have fallen down or bowed down and worshiped him and obeyed him because they couldn't do otherwise. He wanted that man and woman to choose to worship him and serve him. And so he made them free to choose. And you know what happened. When Mrs. Eve used her power of choice, she became the forerunner of the ERA. The devil came to that woman when she was alone and made her think that she was being kept down, that she had a right to herself. Young people, if you have been guilty of saying that, don't you ever say it again. I have a right to myself. I have a right to myself. No human being has a right to anything but to spend an eternity in hell. That's all any human being ever has a right to. People give me books. They give me a lot of dresses. Give me the one I have on. I wouldn't have it. Now, when they go buy a dress and bring it to me, usually somebody else gets it. In the first place, they underestimate how big a woman I am. They'll make me too little and it'll never fit. I was on the mission field. People used to send me clothes for Christmas. And some younger, smaller, slender missionary always got them. I passed them on to somebody who could wear them. I couldn't get in them. Well, now that I'm over here, they usually take me to a dress shop to select the dress. And I just stand back and say nothing. I don't show any interest in anything until that woman walks up to her rack and says, Miss Bertha, how do you like this? And I see the price tag on those dresses. And I see how much money she's going to put in that dress. I evermore get dizzy. And I look all around here. Well, how do you like this one? Well, how do you think this would look on me? And how do you think this would suit for my speaking? And I come away with a pretty dress. Well, nobody has ever taken me around to a bookstore and let me select a book. Well, I buy good books, and I'm not able to read even all that I spend money for. I just don't have much time to read. And so they'll just buy a book and bring it to me. Well, sometimes I already have it. But I appreciate it with all my heart. And I thank them profusely because of the fact that they wanted to give me a book. And somebody gave me a book. I don't know who ever wrote such a book. And I don't know who ever bought it and brought it to me. But somehow that book got on the top shelf in a little bookcase I have about that wide. I have another one in my bedroom. It has my precious books in it. And that book got on that top shelf just on a level of my eye. And I live in an old home, ten-room house that my father built. His growing family moved in it the year that I started school, 1895. And it has a fireplace and a walk-in closet and just room for that bookcase. And every time I walk into that walk-in closet, if I look toward that bookcase, I see that book. Now, what do you suppose the title of that book is? Do Missionaries Have No Rights? Who ever heard of it is such a question. Who ever heard of anybody writing such a book? Now, and who ever heard of any printing company printing such a book? The woman surely must have written some more better than that before or they never would have paid any attention to it. She'd have evidently written one already that sold. Or the publishers never would have published it. Do Missionaries Have No Rights? Well, I've never read that book and I never intend to read that book. But you know, every time I see that title, I don't say I answer the argument of the book. I'm more scientific than that. I answer the title. Do Missionaries Have No Rights? No, certainly not. Who ever heard of anybody who put the spotless Son of God into our brain? Talk about her rights or his rights. By nature, we're all going down and going down. Sinning in thoughts, sinning in words, sinning in our choices, sinning in eating, sinning in everything we do, some even sinning in exercise and sports, injuring their bodies. Some even injuring animals. To show off, driving animals, training, raising horses to be raised horses. How could anybody be that wicked to treat a horse like that? To show off. Human beings. Something happened to human beings after they were created. You know it did. If we didn't have a Bible, we'd no longer know it. So depraved that we've got to have a good time and we've got to have pleasure. And how on earth could anybody see pleasure? Seeing a horse being run to death. And now they're running dogs to death. And seeing men run to death. And playing games and having all kinds of accidents just for pleasure for somebody. That's just these people. But these people are not what God made. They're not what God made. Well, Adam, Eve, she threw us all into sin by her choice. Listening to the devil. Didn't even go after Adam. When the devil came, using the serpent, talking to it. Now the serpent had feet in those days. We don't know whether it had two or four. I mean it had. But it was an upright, the most beautiful, cleverest animal that God had made. Could even talk. And it came to Eve and said, well, you're being kept down. You're being kept down. You have a right to yourself. The Lord's keeping you down. He's told you if you eat that fruit you die, but you will not die. Just giving God the lie. You'll not die. God is jealous of you. This is what he insinuated. You read the third chapter of Genesis and you'll see what I've seen in it, you'll see in it. You'll not die. The Lord knows the day you eat that apple, your eyes will be opened and you'll be equal with God. He's jealous of you. He doesn't want you to be equal with himself. He's keeping you down. You have a right to yourself. And the Bible says that Eve was deceived. She listened to the devil. Her position was high enough already. How could she want anything higher? But when she listened to that devil, friends, the devil has power. When she entertained him and listened to him, instead of rushing to Adam to be protected from him, the devil entered into her. And she took that fruit and ate it, thinking she was going to get something higher. And what did she get? God's glory departed from her. God's life departed from her. And the nature of the devil entered into her and she became this black thing. And there she stood. God's glory gone. She was naked. God's life gone. God's power gone. With a marvelous human body that only God himself could have made. With a mind in that body that just astounds us when we think about it. And a spirit that would live forever in heaven or hell through all eternity. And even that human body, when it would go to the grave, it would rise again and that spirit would come back in it. Where that spirit were in heaven or hell, it would come back and enter into that person. And that human body that God had created would live forever in heaven or hell. Well, misery loves company. And then after Eve sinned, she didn't let Adam alone until he sinned. We don't know how long she wept on his shoulder, but she won out. She won out and she persuaded Adam to sin. Now, the Word of God tells us that Eve was deceived and sinned. Now, the Bible nowhere tells us that Adam was deceived. Adam sinned with his eyes open. Blessed Eve was God's glory gone. And Adam deliberately chose between the woman and holy God. Now, Eve had chosen between the holy God and the devil. And she listened to the devil. And Adam chose between the woman and holy God and had been doing that ever since. He decided to go with the woman. And when he took that fruit and disobeyed God, God's glory departed from Adam. God's life departed from Adam. And the nature of the devil entered into Adam and he became a human being plus the devil. And God couldn't associate with people like that. And God went back to heaven. He went back to heaven. And then he put a flaming sword at the gate of the Garden of Eden and let those two people go back in that garden where he was going, where he was in the habit of coming down. And no human being has seen God in his glory since then except Moses. And I'm sure God was not in all of his glory when he came down on Mount Sinai. But he had to come down to give Moses a way whereby he could build a tent and whereby God could put the children of Israel all to death for what they were by nature and at the same time let them live by them transferring themselves to certain animals and instituting a priesthood to stand between the people and holy God and building a tent that God could live in. And he gave them a way whereby the whole nation could all be put to death and live at the same time. They could be put to death in those sacrifices. And by God putting them to death, he could live in their midst. And he would have to live in their midst to take them back to Canaan and prepare people in a place to send the Savior into the world. And so Moses saw God's glory that no human being ever has. But you know what happened? When God called Moses up on that mount, I've given this to the group who were here this morning. I'll repeat it for those who were not. Moses went up in a cloud. God put him in a cloud. And he went up that mount. He had to get right up in front of Jehovah God to get directions for all that worship and for building that tent. And then God had to give him the law, the civil law. The Lord expected to be their ruler. He never expected to have a human being for a king. He was going to be their king and choose a man, no doubt, to work, speak through as long as that man lived and then choose another to speak through him to the people. God was going to be their king. And Moses had to get right up into the presence of God. And God put some of his own glory on Moses in order for Moses to cover up that sinful nature so Moses could stand there in God's presence and get those directions. And then the Lord took back a little bit of his glory, our Lord and Savior, up on the mount in the presence of three of the apostles who went up with him to pray and the others wouldn't go. And they saw Jesus take back some of his glory. This was the Lord's special provision to let those men know that Jesus was God and their Messiah even though he was going to go down and go to Jerusalem and be crucified. But God can't show his holiness to these people in this black devil nature. And the whole human family descended from these two. Now, God, in his love and mercy, by the way, I think I'll quote what Mr. Spurgeon, that great Baptist pastor of England, has said in one of his sermons that Jehovah God could have done when man sinned, when Adam and Eve sinned. Now, Mr. Spurgeon said, Jehovah God could have just sent the whole world to hell and that would have been honest and God would have used his attribute of holiness and justice because he had given his standard, he had told them not to eat that tree and they could eat everything else that they wanted except that one tree and they couldn't eat that and they did. They deliberately disobeyed after he warned them and he could have just sent the whole crowd to hell. Just washed his hands of them and just let all the whole human family go to hell. Well, could you imagine the Lord doing that? Who would have gotten the glory in God's creation of the human family if all the human family had to go to hell? Well, the devil would have. He'd have been the victor. He'd have been the complete victor, spoiling the whole creation and Jehovah God couldn't let that happen. Well, Mr. Spurgeon had another suppose in that sermon. He said, well, now just suppose since God is love, he's not only just and holy, but he's also love and he loves to forgive. Suppose Jehovah God had just forgiven Adam and Eve for their sin. Well, if he had forgiven Adam and Eve, he'd have to forgive you and me. He'd have to forgive the whole human family and suppose he'd just taken the whole human family to heaven. Well, I surely wouldn't want to go to heaven if Mussolini and Mao Zedong and a few Americans I know were going to be up there through all eternity. It wouldn't be heaven, would it? Well, that wouldn't do. The Lord couldn't receive people with this devil nature into heaven. Well, what could he do? Well, Mr. Spurgeon had a third suppose. Well, now just suppose since God is God, he's just and he must punish sin. Sin is holy nature, must punish everything that comes from the devil and at the same time he's love, he loves to forgive. Just suppose that Jehovah God, because he is God, had some way whereby he could put people to death for their sin and at the same time forgive them and that's just what he did because he sent his son to take our punishment and he gives us the privilege to come and take the death of Jesus, his son, for ourselves and our sins will no longer count as ours but count as the sins of his son. That's what he did. That's what he chose to do and as soon as Adam and Eve sinned, he told them about the Savior. One would come who would conquer the devil. One would come born of a woman who would conquer the devil and conquering the devil, he would suffer. He said the seed of the woman would crush the serpent's head, the serpent representing the devil. But in doing so, he would bruise his heel. Now, you know when your head's crushed, you're finished. A man can have his heel wounded but live without a heel and the Lord would conquer the devil forever but he would suffer in doing so. He would be crucified but he'd live on and before that one would come of whom Jehovah God himself told Adam and Eve and promised to them. He put Adam and Eve to death in sheep. Now, he certainly used more than one sheep because he had the skins to clothe Adam and Eve. He had skins to clothe them, not put a fur piece around the necks or around the waist. He clothed them. Well, he put to death those sheep and those sheep represented the one who would come. And that was 4,000 years before the Savior came. It should not have taken that long but the Lord never forces human beings and it took Him that long. Well, now, certainly they built an altar there. Perhaps Adam and Eve built the altar and they transferred themselves to those sheep and the Lord killed those sheep. And they gave their children and future descendants that way to worship. By being put to death in those sheep they could worship God. Now, their first son refused to worship God as God had ordained. His name, you remember, was Cain. He'd had no television to see people kill somebody. He'd never been to a moving, seen anybody kill anybody. His sin came out of his own black devil nature. He'd inherited that devil nature from Adam and Eve and he just brought the labor of his own hands. Whether it was fruits or vegetables or something from the trees. We don't know what it was, but he brought the fruit of the field. Something which could in no way shed blood and represent the Lord Jesus Christ. He brought a present to the Lord. Now there's a time to give presents but people have to be put to death in God's sight before God can accept presents from them. And he refused. He was this black thing that had to be put to death and just brought a present as if we were friends. Brought a present to the Lord and the Lord paid no attention to his offering. And in those days before there was a Bible when the Lord accepted people's offerings he sent down fire from heaven and burned it up. The Lord didn't pay a bit of attention to Cain's offering and then his brother Abel came and brought a sheep, transferred himself to that sheep and the Lord sent down fire and consumed that sheep. Now, why was Abel's offering accepted? Well, he offered the right kind of offering. God had told his parents well that they could transfer the sheep and the sheep died in their stead and the sheep represented his son who was going to come. And we read in Hebrews chapter 11 verse 4 By faith, Abel offered a more excellent sacrifice than Cain. Faith in whom? Faith in the seed of the woman who was to come, of course. And then Cain was just, we would say, just mad as fury because the Lord didn't accept his offering. And then he was jealous of Cain and that man was just mad at Jehovah God, angry with Jehovah God. Now, what a wicked man. Where did all that sin come from? And then he hated his brother, fussed with his brother, killed his brother, hit him in the sand and when Jehovah God called him, he lied and said, I know nothing about my brother. And then when the Lord punished him, he complained that his punishment was too great after he'd robbed his own brother of the right to live. All that sin in one person. Well, Adam and Eve had many, many children and they lived over 800 years. Many, many children. And they were all like Adam and Eve. Sinners. But the third son, the first one that was born after Abel, loved the Lord, worshipped the Lord. And they started a new line worshipping God. And then you remember Cain was sent away and the earth was cursed. And I often wonder if that big desert between the Holy Land and Babylon was the section that was cursed because of Cain's sin. Well, after a while, the descendants of Seth intermarried with the descendants of Cain, says the sons of God and the daughters of men intermarried. And the world became so wicked. Now they knew how to worship God, but they went their own way and did as they pleased. And we get down to the 6th chapter of Genesis, about 1400 years after Adam and Eve were created. And Jehovah God looked down and saw the earth and he described them by saying that thoughts and imaginations of their hearts were only evil continually. And it made him sick at his heart that he'd ever created human beings and put them in the world. And he just decided he'd block the whole human family out. And he would have, and he not found one man, just one man, Noah. And that man walked with God. And evidently he served as a priest and offered the sacrifices for his family because that's what he did when he came out of the ark. And the Lord made a new start with Noah's family. And Noah preached to that vicar generation and warned them 120 years and didn't get one Baptist decision, let alone anybody into the ark. Now just imagine how wicked they were. Not one in 120 years. Well, the Lord appreciated that from Noah. And no doubt Noah was afraid that his descendants would all leave the Lord and become so wicked that the Lord would have to destroy them. And the Lord showed his appreciation for Noah in obeying that, building that ark. The Lord didn't want to destroy the whole earth. But he promised Noah that he would never send another flood. As long as there stood, there'd be seed town and harvest. Maybe that's the reason this generation hasn't been destroyed. The Lord's promised to Noah. Well, the world has never been as wicked since the flood as it was before until now. We must have just about reached it. We must have just about reached it when a president receives two groups of homosexuals at different times at the White House as if they were respectable leading citizens. When Jehovah God ordered them all put to death. One of the kings of Israel lost his kingdom. That was one of the sins. He permitted homosexuals to live. Sodomites they were called then. If we'd have kept on calling them Sodomites, they'd have been a little bit more terrible to us. We'd think of God destroying Sodom every time we heard the word. They took a more respectable name and suitable, decent people took it up. Well, to keep the world from expressing itself as wickedly, as freely as it did in wickedness, as freely as it did before the flood, the Lord did two things for the generation after the flood for Noah's descendants. First, he established human government. In Genesis 9, verse 6, we read, Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed. And after the flood, people were responsible for the sins of other people. And people were to arrest people that were guilty and condemn them to death. And when they were proven guilty, put them to death. Some people forfeit their right to live in a true society, in a decent society with other people. Some of them not fit to live. And it's not safe to let them live. And God's will is that that kind of people should, they're going to hell anyway, send them home before they take so many people with them and break their influence. That was God's plan. And then another thing that Jehovah God did was to shorten men's lives. And the wicked people couldn't influence our three or four generations, and even more generations than when they lived to eight, nine hundred years old. If a generation is thirty years, just think how many generations one wicked man could influence. So the Lord cut their years down considerably. And later in the Bible we're promised three score years and ten. And when we go over that it's just the Lord's loving mercy. Well, after the flood, about five hundred years after the flood, I would see Jehovah God choosing one man to prepare a family and a place to send the seed of the woman into the world, his son. And because he never forces people to obey him, it took two thousand years of chasing and blessing and chasing and blessing the descendants of Abraham before there was a place and a people among whom the Lord could send his son. We read in Galatians 4, 4, In the fullness of time God sent forth his son. God sent forth his son. God became flesh and came down in the world. Now, there may be some university students here. They're not the students that will be. And there are those who have been. Some of you have children in university and you will have. Now God's son came down and this is Jesus. He got a new name when he came into the world. He had many names in the Old Testament. But when he laid aside his glory and took a human body, his name was Jesus. And where did he get that? The angel came down to the foster father and told him that that child was to be named Jesus. Why? That meant Savior. Thou shall call his name Jesus for he shall save his people from their sin. And Jesus entered into a human body and his name was Jesus. And he was God. And he had to lay aside his glory and become flesh in order to die. Now it's no greater miracle for me to believe that God by a miracle created a human body in the body of Mary than it is to believe that God created Adam out of dirt and then performed the first surgery and took a rib out of his side and created a woman. If God's doing it, well, that satisfies me. How he did it was his own business. But you know, the Lord never created but three human bodies and that was Adam and Eve and a human body for his son, the living. Those were direct creations by the hand of God. But he made man in his image and he gave the human family the power to recreate and every animal, every living organism, he gave the power to recreate. And you think of human beings being able to create other human beings, you just stop and think over it a little bit or it'll just blow you to the top almost. But God made us like himself in his image to that extent. And he says, Why? The only way the Lord, the only place the Lord has to live down here in the world is in human beings. The only way he can express himself to other people is in human beings. The only throne he has down here in the world is the human heart. And he says, Be fruitful and multiply. Well, Jesus came. Now some of these university professors, they may not be teaching Bible, but they just branch over no matter what subject they're teaching. And they'll just branch over. I know what they do. And they'll try, they'll talk, they'll bring up Bible subjects in class just to shock the students. And they'll say that, of course, Jesus was not born of a virgin. And that's quite wide the mark. He didn't have to be born of a virgin. He was the child of Mary. And that doesn't matter. All that matters is the life he lived. Well, I'd like to see every one of those professors. And I'd like to say to them, I happen to know how much it matters whether Jesus was born of a virgin or whether he was just a child of Mary and Joseph. And the little bit that it matters is whether you have to spend an eternity in hell or whether you have the privilege of coming to the cross because he had no sin. He was God come into flesh and could die. And if he had an earthly father, he'd have to die. And an earthly mother would have to die for his own sin. And he didn't have a devil nature because God by a miracle created that child in the womb of Mary. And he had no sin. Therefore, he could take the sins of the world in himself because it was God come into flesh. Now, that's the little bit that matters. Whether they have to spend an eternity in hell or whether they have the privilege of going to heaven and spending an eternity in heaven because they can only get in heaven by Jesus being the door. They can only get in by him. Well, we know that it was God came into flesh and he took a human body. And he lived down here among these people just long enough to give every evidence necessary that he was not an ordinary man. He was God come into flesh. God come into flesh. And friends, he came to die. And early in his ministry, he said in the gospel of Mark, I am come to give my life a ransom for many. I've come to buy them back. I've come to redeem them. I've come to make it possible for them to be saved. No man takes my life from me. If you drink the water that I shall give you, you will never thirst. I am the resurrection and the life. He that hath the son hath life. I am the light of the world. No man cometh to the Father but by me. And he was able to do what no Old Testament prophet had ever done. He was able to delegate his power to his apostle to go out and do the same kind of work he did, cast out demons, heal the sick. Jesus died. And friends, even though he was God and he knew all the time he was born to die, you and I are born to live, he was born to die. It seems that he just, even though he was God and knew everything, he just hadn't realized how horrible it was going to be until he came down and got near to going to the cross. And when we read that he went up on that way up to Mount Hermon a few months before he went to the cross, he wanted to take all the disciples up there to pray. He told them down at the mount, at the foot of the mount he was going to go to Jerusalem. He told them many times he was going to die. But the disciples had it so in their heads that when this Messiah came he'd be an earthly ruler and drive out the people in authority over them, the Romans at that time, drive out the Romans and establish Israel as an earthly nation. And he would be their king and they would have their own nation again, which they'd never had since they went to Babylon. They'd just been subjects of Gentile nations. And that's all they could see in the coming of a Messiah. And when he told them he was going to be rejected at the hands of the Jewish leaders delivered to the Gentiles, which meant to the Roman officials to be put to death. That Jewish court didn't have the authority to put anybody to death. The Romans gave the Jews perfect religious liberty and let that Jewish Sanhedrin of 70 men try people who broke the law of Moses.