Nothing But The Blood Of Jesus

Some years ago, I was playing golf with a giant of a man. This man towered over me. He was at least six foot five and as wide as a brick wall.

And this big man had a big filthy mouth. I never heard a man with such a filthy mouth before. Every time this big man took a swing at the golf ball, he cursed God and cussed man.

Finally, I couldn't take it anymore. So on a teabox, I turned to him and asked, Friend, can I ask you a question? And he said, Shoot. And I said, Tell me, how's your relationship with God? And he smiled a big grin and said, Fine, I have a great relationship with God.

He leaves me alone and I leave him alone. That's what the big man said. But do you know what, friends? And it breaks my heart to say this.

All you have to do to go to hell is for God to leave you alone. If God doesn't invade your life by his grace and change your heart by his spirit, then there's no hope for you. No hope.

If you're here tonight and you're really saved, it's because God has given you a saving faith, friend. If God leaves you alone, you'll die outside of Christ's blood and you'll bust hell wide open when you die. Oh, it's a terrible thought to be cast into the darkness of hell.

Oh, friends, I have not come here tonight to entertain you, as others do, or tell you some funny stories. But my sermon to you this evening is a solemn warning. And I come to you this evening with a terrible burden, with a fire in my bones and a burden for your souls.

It is my prayer that God may open hearts to see the realities of eternity and the God of that eternity. I'll give you the unvarnished, undiluted gospel tonight, friends. For as we say in the South, I'll give you the oil straight from the can.

But first, I can't preach this sermon alone. Let me pray for God's gracious assistance. Great God in heaven, oh, ancient of days, you who dwell among the cherubim, you dwell in a high and lofty place whose name is holy.

I need your assistance, Lord, to preach your gospel of the cross tonight about your bloodstained son. For what is man but a guilty rebel, a guilty sinner? Every one of us are hell-deserving sinners, Lord. Perhaps in your mercy and by your grace, you will take your preached word this evening and by your spirit apply it to the heart of some poor sinner.

They may be an old church member. They may be a young person. But may your word run like a fire and fall with the weight and force of a hammer.

And come, Lord, bust up every false foundation, smoke out every false refuge. May your spirit bring conviction and burn into the conscience of some like a fire in a smoke. Oh, Lord, speak to these boys and girls here that they'll flee only to the only refuge and remedy for sin in the person of your dear son, Jesus.

Lord, make your word heavy like a claymore in my hands this evening. Strengthen me, not to spare, but to hew and cut down the old man of Agag all to pieces. Give me grace, I pray, to preach with a little thunder tonight, Lord, whereby your spirit.

These folks can see Mount Sinai all together on a smoke. Open hearts, I pray, and pour your saving grace in there. And I pray these things in the strong name of Jesus.

Amen. Well, friends, we read in God's word in Isaiah chapter 1 and verse 18, which declares, Come now and let us reason together, saith the Lord. Though your sins be as scarlet, they should be as white as snow.

Though they be red like crimson, they should be as wool. Well, I will stop there, friends. We can see from this striking verse of Scripture that sin has a polluting nature, that sin stains the soul.

Because of this staining nature of sin, our only hope is Jesus. Like the old hymn says, what can wash away my sins? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. Well, let me better illustrate this by the following true story, which happened to me, friends.

Years ago, I was preaching in a church down south in the state of Mississippi one Sunday morning. And it was customary down south, after the service was over, to have a big banquet, a big smorgasbord for the visiting preacher. Well, we all went to the fellowship hall, where picnic tables were laid out with meals that members had prepared.

And this buffet food was sitting there in various casserole dishes and on plates. Well, I like hot dogs, so I loaded up my plate with a few hot dogs. And I like mustard on my hot dogs.

Some of you kids might like mustard on your hot dogs as well. So I lathered them up from a jar of mustard that was sitting on the table before me, and I sat down with an old deacon and his wife. But I wondered why they were staring at me so, until I realized I had smeared yellow mustard all over the front of my brand new blue pinstripe suit.

The old deacon shook his head and said, Well, at least we know you're human. Well, I took that suit to the cleaner's friends, but that mustard stain never came out of that blue suit. It always had a green hue.

And every time after that, when I wore that suit and looked in the mirror, it carried that stain. And that's what sin does to you, friend. It stains you, and it won't come out.

It won't come off of you. Oh, you can try to whitewash sin by calling it other names, but that won't do. A fib is still a lie.

Taking something that doesn't belong to you is still stealing. Fooling around is still adultery. You can't whitewash sin by renaming it or lessening it.

Now listen to me, friends. Sin is still sin, and it leaves a stain on you morally that you can't wash out even by church membership. Do you hear me, friends? My new blue suit had that mustard stain, and it's still there even though the suit is old.

Oh, well, what is sin? We all have our idea of what sin is, but I think the shortest definition of sin I can find in the Bible is found in Isaiah 53.6. All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way, and that's what sin is, friends. It's going our way.

When we know it isn't God's way, it's turning our back on God and going our way. Young woman, young man, you know the life you're living isn't pleasing to God. You know you've been going your own way too long now, and it's not God's way.

Listen to me, Mr. Businessman. You know you've been going your way, and it's not God's way. Even though you're a married man, your excuses won't help you.

I'm going to speak to some wives tonight now. What you watch on TV may give you a thrill, but you know it's hellish entertainment, and you're going your own way when you choose entertainment that's displeasing to a holy God. We all have our little excuses of sin, but anyway you slice it, friend, sin stains like mustard on a suit, and I'm telling you, friends, God is a God who must punish sin.

You can just set aside that little God of yours, the God of your imagination, who's nothing more than a big jolly Santa Claus who exists solely to bless his little darlings. Well, Jesus never preached a sin in religion, and the Bible says that God must punish sin. Listen to me, friends.

God took his darling son, his only begotten son, and gave him as a sacrifice for sin. Listen to this moving passage from Matthew's Gospel. Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the common hall and gathered unto him the whole band of soldiers, and they stripped him and put on him a scarlet robe.

And when they had plaited a crown of thorns, they put it upon his head, and a reed in his right hand, and they bowed the knee before him and mocked him, saying, Hail, King of the Jews. And they spit upon him, and they took the reed and smote him on the head. And after that they had mocked him.

They took the robe off from him and put his own raiment on him and led him away to crucify him. And as those cruel Roman soldiers fastened the Son of God to that tree, as they raised their hammers to drive the nails into his hands and feet, every stroke of the hammer was an explanation point crying out to man, God must punish sin. God must punish sin.

God must punish sin. Listen, friends, I want you to see that bloodstained Christ hanging on that cross at Calvary as he squirms and wiggles beneath the weight of sin, my filthy sins, your filthy sins. And on that bloody cross, the Son of God is crucified as the earth quakes and trembles, as rocks were torn asunder as the sky darkens, and the veil in the temple, which was 60 feet high and four inches thick, was torn asunder like it was paper mache.

Oh, wonder of wonders, as the angels in heaven looked down in amazement at such a spectacle, the Son of God hanging there in shame and pain. Perhaps, friends, if you would just look yonder, look, look, you can see that bloodstained Christ nailed there on that tree with his arms out stretched, outstretched as he beckons you to come to him and believe on him. I think I can hear his cry.

Oh, look unto me and be ye saved, all ye ends of the earth, for I am God and there is none else. Look at that man on the cross, friend. Look at that bloodstained Savior for sin.

Look at that bleeding Savior, friend. Will you come to him and believe on him? Or will you wag your head like the lost religious leaders of his day and just point and laugh at that bloody spectacle of the Son of God hanging there in the shame and pain of Calvary while you indifferently just pass on by? Listen to me. Will you leave this sermon tonight without it doing you any good? What are you waiting for, mister? Don't wait until you're better.

Come, come, come to the fountain of living water and drink. In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink. He that believeth on me, as the Scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.

Oh, friend, will you leave this sermon so cold-hearted with such dry eyes and a hard heart and neglect so great salvation? Or will you turn from your wicked ways? Will you turn to God with all your heart and lay down your weapons of rebellion at its nail-pierced feet? Listen, the cross is the place where men tried to get rid of him, but by his death it becomes the place where a saving power flows out to all who come in repentance, confessing they are sinners and own them as their Savior and Lord. Oh, will you admit you're a sinner, friends? The Bible calls you a sinner. The Word of God describes you as a sinner, but you must close with Christ, friend.

Salvation is in Christ Jesus. I wish I could go on. I'm all worn out.

I'm just an old man with a bad heart and a pacemaker, and I must end my preaching to you now, friends. I must stop preaching about this remedy for sin in the person of Christ Jesus. I don't have the strength to go on, but I plead with you, friends.

Before you leave, I want you to know my hands are free of your blood, for I've preached the full counsel of God to you, even though some of you will reject this message. For the Apostle Paul said, for the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness, but unto us which are saved, it is the power of God. Oh, friends, if I can only go a little further and tell you that word power in the Greek is the word dunamis, where we get our English word dynamite from.

I'll preach you tonight, friends, with my Bible in one hand and a stick of dynamite in the other. How can you ignore the safety of your eternal soul? How can you be so different to your eternal destiny? Every single one of you should be down on your knees crying out to God for mercy, for mercy. Aren't you? Are you a statue made of stone? Is your heart so hard like stone? Is there not a hungry heart yet in you? Some within the sound of my voice may be dead before this year is ended.

Sudden death is all around us. I had a friend getting his airplane, but his plane crashed and it became his coffin. I had another friend who was driving to work and he died when his car crashed and his car became his coffin.

I said goodbye to one friend in a hallway in a business building. And later that night, after midnight, his wife said he woke suddenly, took two steps out of bed and dropped dead to the floor, dead with a heart attack. He was a young man.

You got no guarantee of tomorrow, friend. God may require your soul tonight. Well, my sermon is over.

But before we part, may someone here yet come to Christ for a pardon of sin? The gospel is for the hungry, the weary, and the thirsty. You must feel your need of a savior for sin. With my eyes full of tears and my heart choked full of love, I leave you with this final gospel plea.

It's found in the last part of the book of Revelation, friends. Listen, and perhaps you just won't hear this old shaky voice of an old man, of this old preacher. But maybe, just maybe, by God's grace, you'll hear his voice as it comes to you in power and majesty.

And the spirit and the bride say, come. And let him that heareth say, come. And let him that is the thirst come, and whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.