The Blood

There's a story friends I'd like to share with you about an incident that took place during a cruel and bloody war. A commander took an oath in the presence of his troops that he would slaughter the entire population of a certain town. His soldiers descended upon that town and began to slaughter everyone they could lay their hands on.

There was a man hiding in a bush watching in horror as his fellow townspeople were put to death. He watched a number of soldiers as they broke into a house, the inmates of which they put to the sword. On leaving it, one of them dipped a cloth into a pool of blood and splashed it on the door as a token to any who might follow of what had taken place inside, and as quick as his feet could carry him, the man in the bush ran away through the town to a large house in the center of town where a number of his friends were concealed.

He breathlessly told them what he had just seen. At once it flashed upon them what to do. A goat was in the yard, and immediately it was killed, and its blood splashed on the door.

Scarcely had they closed the door when a band of soldiers rushed into their street, but when they came to the blood-marked door they made no attempt to enter. The sword, so they thought, had already entered therein and performed its work. Even though many inhabitants of that town were slain, all within the blood-marked door were saved.

My message today, friends, is entitled The Blood, and my message is an unusual one, because we don't hear much preaching anymore on the blood. We've managed to get rid of all the hymns we used to sing about the blood, like, there's power, power, wonder-working power in the blood of the Lamb, and what can wash away my sins? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. In Matthew 26, 28, Christ declared, for this is my blood of the New Testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.

We quit preaching offensive messages in our churches years ago, and the cross of Christ is an offense to many. We don't want to preach anything controversial or alarming today, so we just give our hearers nice little messages that rock them to sleep while they suck on their pacifiers and go on to hell. We bought into the politically correct, so we got out our mop buckets and cleaned up all the blood and gore around Calvary.

Why, we made it so pristine that you can sit and have your lunch there. But listen, friends, that bloody cross was a gory mess, with a crucified Christ hanging there. His death was a scandal, and as he hung naked on that bloody tree, the scandal of the cross and the offense of it, it's seldom heard from our pulpits today.

We just tell folks that God loves them, and to get up out of their seats and walk an owl and accept a little Jesus, who so meek and mild he wouldn't hurt a flea, much less disturb a sinner hardened in his sins. Listen to me, friends, a bloodless gospel won't save a soul, because every mother's son born into this world is under a curse, and you must get to a crucified Christ who became a curse for us. Ephesians declares, in whom we have redemption through his blood.

Revelation 1 5 states, unto him that loved us and washed us from our sins in his own blood. Why, you start preaching the blood, brother pastor, and all hell will break loose, because the devil hates the name of Jesus, and he can't stand the blood. But there's power in that bloodstained cross.

There's power in the blood. Like the old copper hymn states, there is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel's veins, and sinners plunge beneath that flood and lose all their guilty stains. But we water down the gospel we preach today, and we refuse to call folks sinners.

We refuse to make them see the badness of their hearts and the poison in their blood from sin. If they can't see the malady, why would they need a remedy that the sin substitute that Peter spoke of, who in his own self, bear our sins in his own body on the tree, and of whom the apostle Paul spoke of in Romans, much more than being now justified by his blood, we should be saved from wrath through him. What did the old boy just say? Wrath? What wrath? Folks in church today don't know much about the wrath of God, nor do they believe in a God who must punish sin.

But just like that blood-marked door in our store today, friends, so too were the children of Israel safe in that shelter of blood. For the Lord said, when I see the blood, I will pass over you. And when God the Father sees your sinful hide on the blood of his dear son, his wrath will pass over you.

The true gospel has blood in it. Listen to me. I'm thankful for that bloody cross.

First Peter 1.8 shouts to the heavens and then descends to rattle the very gates of hell, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb, without blemish and without spot. The apostle Paul warned his hearers, and he preached up that blood, in whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins. The blood of Christ needs to return to our pulpits today to let guilty rebels know their need of a refuge and remedy for sin.

For Christ Jesus sits at this very moment in heaven on a throne, seated at the right hand of the Father. And do you know what, friend? He earned that right by way of a bloody cross. Brother preacher, put away that mop bucket and get back to proclaiming to a sin-soaked world about a bloodstained Christ who died so we may live.

Let us pray.