Brethren, the fact of universal sinfulness is the outstanding fact of
humanity. Jesus Christ deals with it by His death, which is God's
sacrifice and the world's atonement. That Lamb of God has borne away the
world's sins, and my sins and thy sins are there. By the fact of His
death He has rent the veil from the top to the bottom, and the light
comes in, unhindered by the terrible solemn fact that all of us have
sinned and come short of the glory of God. By His life He communicates
to each of us, if we will trust our poor sinful souls to Him, a new
power of living which is triumphant over temptation, and gives the
victory over sin if we will be true to Him. And so the last shreds of
the veil, like the torn clouds of a spent thunderstorm, are parted into
filmy rags and float away below the horizon, leaving the untarnished
heavens and the flaming sunshine; and 'we with unveiled faces' can lift
them up to be irradiated by the light. 'In this mountain will the Lord
destroy the covering that is spread over all nations.'

The weak point of all these schemes and methods to which I have already
referred for helping humanity out of the slough, and making men happier,
is that they underestimate the fact of sin. If a man comes to them and
says, 'I have broken God's law. What am I to do? I have a power within
me that impels me now to evil. How am I to get rid of it?' they have no
adequate answer. There is only one remedy that deals radically with the
fact of human transgression; only one power that will deliver each of
us, if we will, from the penalty, the guilt, the power of sin; and that
is the sacrifice of Christ on Calvary, and its result, the inspiration
of the spirit of life that was in Jesus Christ, breathed into us from
the Throne itself. Thus, and thus only, is the veil done away in Christ.

III. Lastly, where does the life that destroys death come from?