Within Reach of the Blood

In America today, we have the cleanest churches in the world. They are spotless. We are continually scrubbing our church sanctuaries with our mop buckets.

To be absolutely certain there is no trace of any stain of blood. We began this big cleanup years ago when we quit singing hymns about the blood, like, what can wash away my sins? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. Then we quit preaching on the blood, and we quit telling folks that nothing but the blood could save them.

We quit holding up a bloodstained savior for sin. We washed him down as well by diluting his gospel and removing all traces of his blood. We ended up with a pristine Calvary and a socially acceptable Jesus who won't offend anyone.

But the fact is, the Christ who hung on that cross was unrecognizable as a man because when the Roman soldiers got through their work with him, his face looked like a pound of bloody hamburger meat. His body was bloodstained as blood poured out of his hands and feet and ran down his forehead from his crown of thorns that cut and lacerated his tender scalp. His nailed-up body squirmed as it writhed and wiggled in a death of crucifixion, which was the most painful death a human could encounter.

That cross had blood all over it, for the whole scene was a bloody spectacle and a scandal to man. But our churches didn't like that version of the gospel when we decided to go on a building campaign and expand our campus so we could look good within our denomination. So we preachers got out our pliers and pulled all the teeth out of the gospel.

Then we dunked it in a soapy wash bucket and diluted it to make it more palatable to sinful man. And that's where we are today in our churches, with a bloodless gospel and a cleaned-up Christ. And we are packing our sanctuaries every Sunday with that man-centered, man-pleasing gospel of ours.

But at the same time, the result of it is packing hell with new arrivals every hour as our church members die off here and there and die in their sins beyond the saving blood of Christ for pardon for sin. But the fact remains that if this preacher, by the name of E. A. Johnston, is going to make it to heaven, the only way will be by the blood of Christ when his life is laid down and applied to me so that the Father can say, when I see the blood, when I see the blood. And our main problem today in our church is in this country of our theologically correct congregations who are full of folks who look good and who are nice-looking and nobody can see the blood, much less get within reach of it to be saved by that blood-stained Christ who gave his all on a bloody cross so sinners could be reconciled back to a holy God who hates sin and who must punish sin in his strict justice, by heaping coals of fire of his wrath on guilty sinners in a place of sin called hell—punishment for sin, rather, called hell.

You see, friends, man has a poison in his blood because of Adam's fall, and he is under a curse and under condemnation, and he can only escape the wrath of God through him by being justified. By what? By his blood, or Texas in Romans 5.9. But when are we going to start preaching the gospel again in this sin-soaked nation of ours and forget about our reputations within our denomination and forget about trying to be a popular preacher and just get down to the business of saving souls from a fiery hell and be so intoxicated with Christ that we preach the blood once again in this morally bankrupt society again? Like the old-time preachers used to do when the hearers clashed with that message of the cross and those old boys put their neck on the line for the sake of God's glory and the souls of men. No man's scarlet sins can be white but by being washed in the blood of Christ.

Now that's my introduction, friends, and you better put your seatbelt on and put your cigarette out and put your beer can down and turn your TV off so you can pay attention to this message today, which just might keep some of you out of hell. The title of my message today is Within Reach of the Blood. My text is Romans 5.9. Which states, much more than being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him.

Number one, men must be warned about their great danger of dying in their sins because a God is a God who must punish sin and the sentencing of the law must and will be carried out by that just judge in all his strictness and severity. Hollywood celebrities may be able to break the law and get away with it but one day they will all line up to face a judge who will not look the other way but who will enforce the transgression of his holy law and there will be hell to pay. Number two, men must be informed of their escape from the storm of justice by the refuge for sin, Jesus Christ.

Men must understand the message of the gospel. There is a story about Sam Jones when he came to Memphis in the 19th century, back when there was still a fear of God in the land. And the story goes that Uncle Ben was in attendance at the meetings and Ben was the faithful old black sexton of the church that Sam Jones was holding meetings at and it was testimony time and Uncle Ben stood up to his feet and told the church the following words.

For years I have begged the almighty to send a man to Memphis to rescue the souls perishing here. Now he has come and as Ben spoke his voice got louder as he shouted with joy. Thank God for him.

He preaches the gospel so everyone can hear it. He feeds me. He feeds the young and the old but the ministers of Memphis have been putting the fodder too high.

But this man, this man of God, scatters the fodder on the ground and we can all reach it. Number three, men must be awakened to their lost sin sick condition. They need a remedy for sin in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Jesus declared this very truth when he said in Matthew 9 and verses 12 and 13. They that behold need not a physician but they that are sick but go ye and learn what that meaneth. I will have mercy and not sacrifice for I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.

Do we have any sinners here today friends? Is there such a rarity in America today as a sinner? I don't think we can find one because the church years ago quit referring to folks as sinners. We didn't want to offend anybody and drive them away because we needed their money to pay the cost of our huge church campus so we stopped referring to men and women as sinners. No, they are merely the unchurched who need to join our church or join our country club rather.

Number four, men must be shown the way to Calvary to come to Christ for pardon for sin. We have to stop telling sin-loving men and women hardened by sin and dead in sin that they can have a free ticket to heaven by only repeating a prayer or walking an aisle and accepting our little Jesus. We must show them the way to Calvary and then point them to that man on the cross who died for sin becoming sin for us so they can be saved by him and realize our verse from Romans today much more than being now justified by his blood we should be saved from wrath through him.

Christ must be preached simply powerfully and with clarity so he is revealed to sinners so they can receive a revealed Christ who is accessible so the sinner can come within reach of the blood. I'm going to finish my sermon today friends with a story and I believe it sums up my points today pretty well and it's an exhortation as well to my preacher brethren here now is that story about coming within reach of the blood. There's a big baptist church in Memphis and one of the former pastors was R.G. Lee.

He was known for preaching a famous sermon called Payday Sunday. Well there was a member of Dr. Lee's congregation an attorney who had to be out of town on business frequently but no matter where this lawyer went he made sure to catch a train back to Memphis on Saturday night so he could listen to R.G. Lee preach on Sunday. He loved to hear that man preach.

Well this lawyer got cancer and he was in the hospital dying and he called for his pastor to come to his bedside. Dr. Lee entered the hospital room whose windows overlooked the Mississippi River. The lawyer told R.G. Lee I want you to know how much I've enjoyed your preaching through the years and I've never missed a Sunday if I could help it.

I lie here dying with only a few weeks to live so they tell me and I want to reprimand you sir for never telling me how to be saved. You never preached the cross to where I could see it. You never put the blood out there to where I could reach it.

I'm a dying and I probably died my sins and I chastise you sir for your lack of preaching the blood and the gospel. Well R.G. Lee left that man's hospital room with his head down feeling berated and guilty as charged. It was now dark outside as he walked down to the banks of the Mississippi River.

There he got down on his knees in the mud getting his white suit pants dirty in the process. While he dipped his hands in the cool muddy river he knelt there reflecting on what this dying man had told him. And right then and there he promised God from that point forward he would preach the cross.

He would preach the blood and he changed his message that night. And in three weeks time there was a move of grace at that church and three blocks of downtown Memphis were shaken with revival. Well let's get back to preaching that message friends.

That message of the cross that's got the blood in it so folks can get to a bloodstained savior for pardon for sin. Let us pray.