<TITLE>04. Par 30-35</TITLE>L-30 If there is anything that I can do to make myself perfect in the Presence of God, then Christ did not have to die for me. If there's one thing that you can do that would merit anything in the Presence of God, then Christ died in vain. No law-keeping, no legalistic ideas of yours, none of your own holiness, no things that you could quit doing: quit lying, quit stealing, quit smoking tobacco, quit going to the picture shows, still you are lost. Nothing can do it. Joining churches, rituals, ceremonies, baptisms, orders of the church, reading of creeds, saying of prayers, all those things would count nothing. You are lost. Not one thing can you do in yourself, for you are a sinner under condemnation. And there's not no way within yourself, or any creed, or anything that you could do, or think of of yourself, that could merit one thing in the Presence of God, because you are a sinner to start with.

L-31 And the Bible declares that we were all borned in sin, shaped in iniquity, come to the world speaking lies. And God could not take one man to die for the other, because one is just as guilty as the other. In the Presence of God the archbishop born in this world was as guilty as the lowest bar-fly in the city. One cannot atone for the other.
Therefore, he took an innocent life of an animal, a little lamb. And under the Old Testament the law was, when a man sinned, he brought the lamb to the altar. Say if he transgressed any of the commandments, he brought the lamb, and he laid it on the altar, he laid his hands upon the lamb, and he confessed his sins, that he was wrong and knowed that he was guilty of--and was... The law required death. And he brought the lamb in his stead. And when he... The throat of the little animal was cut, and as it begin to kick its little feet and bleating. If you ever seen a lamb slaughtered, what a pitiful cry, the poor little fellow trying to bleat, and his little jugular vein's cut. And as he kicks and quivers, and as he straightens out, then quivers again and bleats, and the blood gushes, it bathes his little wool and the worshipper's hands.

L-33 And as the worshipper realizing, for committing adultery, for lying, stealing, whatever his guilt was, or even evil thinking, whatever it was in the least shadow he was guilty, because it was his nature. He was a guilty person, not maybe by desire, but by nature he was guilty. And he had to recognize that this innocent little lamb died in his place and he felt sorry for the little thing.
But the man, as soon as the lamb finally died, with the blood of the lamb upon his hands, he walked from the building with the same desire in his heart that he had at the beginning. Why? Because the life that was in the little lamb... Life lays in the blood. Your life is in your blood. We know that. And the life in the blood of the lamb was animal life; therefore, when its little corpuscles were broken and the life went out of the animal, it could not come back to the worshipper, because the worshipper was a human being.

L-35 The blood made a covering, but it could not perfectly atone; for the man left the building with the same desire to sin as he had in the first place. But doing this, he was looking forward to a time when there would be a perfect Lamb come. And he did it on the burnt offering, because it was the only way he knew about.
So, you see, when the blood was pouring and the life went from the animal, it could not come back to the man; for one was animal, one was man: an innocent animal to a guilty man.


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