This morning's message to this
brother is a dedicated servant of God, a missionary down in
Mexico, pastor of a church in Ball, Louisiana, has a very rewarding
prison ministry. Keep him in prayer. I consider
it such an honor, Milton, not only to have you here with us
at this conference. I appreciate it. And it's an
honor to Claudia and I to be with you again. Someone was asking me the other
day about coming out to California, and I said, I enjoy being there,
I just despise the trip. And, you know, I just, if I could
drive or if they'd let me fly that plane, I'd be all right.
But they won't, so far, they haven't permitted me to do that.
And we've said for 22 years we're going to drive, but so far we
haven't done that either. One of these days, one of these
days, but I enjoy being here. I enjoy getting here. The time
that we have together. Leviticus chapter 4. If you'd
like to follow along with me. I want to speak to you this morning
on blood. Blood on the altar. That blood. All through the scriptures. We're
constantly are faced with this matter of the blood. And you
stop and you read and contemplate the sacrifices that were offered
every day, morning and evening. You contemplate the number of
sacrifices that were made. day after day after month after
month after year after year. For without the shedding of blood
is no remission." John said, it's the blood, the
blood, the blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, that cleanseth us from
all sin. Peter said, you're not redeemed
with corruptible things. It's silver and gold. Your vain conversation, your
conduct that you received by tradition from your fathers but
with the precious and there's no... I can't even say that like
it ought to be said. precious blood of Christ, the
blood. This word blood, it's recorded
over and over again. And if anybody ever complains
that the preacher talks about the blood too much, He must never apologize for it
because it's the blood, the blood of God's dear son. If it were the blood of your
son that was shed for a purpose, you'd always enjoy it. You'd
always enjoy hearing about it, as painful as it is to know that
that blood was not shed in vain. But can you imagine the blood
of God's dear son that was shed for us? For a good man. Yay. Sometimes for a friend. But that's
not us. Wretched. Ungodly. You know, I think about those
guards working in that prison. One of the first things that
they're taught is don't try to save their life of one of these inmates. It's
hopeless. When the intent's there, it's
going to take place. Don't put yourself between a
shank. in the life of one of these men.
It's hard not to do. They tell us as volunteers, don't
get involved. They have men that are trained
and specially equipped to handle those things. But, you know,
I don't know how I would react if my son died protecting one of these
men. I don't know. I don't want to
think about it. But I think about it enough to
think about the Lord of glory sacrificing his own son for us. And that's worse than anything
that I can even imagine that goes on in that in that prison. I know He saved the worst among
us when He saved a wretch like me, but that the Lord Jesus Christ,
the Son of God, would die for sinners, this sinner. We ought to be ashamed only if
we don't talk about the blood. That's the only time we ought
to have any shame This morning I want to talk a little bit about
this blood. And it's not talking merely about
suffering. The blood is mentioned to show
that there was death. Death. You can read the scriptures
and you'll never find one of the sacrifices that was wounded,
where they drew some blood from him. No, he was killed. And here in Leviticus chapter
4, verse 1, the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the
children of Israel, and this is what you are to say to them,
If... And if you want to know the true
meaning of that word, if, look at the fourth word, shall. I promise you, we will. We will. If a soul shall sin
through ignorance, and that's not an excuse. The
Apostle Paul told Timothy, he said, I did it in ignorance through
unbelief. Everything we do against God
is because we're ignorant of who He is. That's the kind of
ignorance. That's an ignorance that's without
excuse. All sin is ignorance of God,
of who He is. And we'll never know sin until
we know the Lord Jesus Christ. Brother Donnie mentioned this,
and I had no idea what sin was. I was like most other religious
folks, and I was religious. I grew up across the street from
the preacher's house. The church was right next door.
We could stand in our backyard and look all the way through
our front door, cross the road into his front door, and clean
all the way out to his backyard. You didn't go to church, you
better have a good reason. Because the whole world knew
it. I was religious, but I had no
idea what sin was. And now, what little I know of it now,
it's indescribable. I see a little bit. I see it
in everything that I do. Everything I touch. Everything
I think. Everything I say. It's seeing. But there was a time when everything
I did was in ignorance. Ignorance of what seeing is.
Ignorance of who God is. Ignorance of what He required
of me. Ignorance of my inability Don't ever, when Paul says, I
did it in ignorance, you say, well, I did it in ignorance. They passed a law in the state
of Louisiana here, went into effect a couple of years ago,
that if it's raining, you have to turn your lights on. And they asked, they said, will
signs be posted? They said, no. They said, people
in Louisiana are supposed to know the law. and said people
from outside of Louisiana will find out when we stop them and
write them a ticket. You're just supposed to know
what it says. Ignorance is no excuse. Ignorance of the law
is no excuse. So here Moses said, if a soul
shall sin through ignorance against any of the commandments of Jehovah, concerning things which ought
not to be done, and shall do against any of them. If the priest that is anointed,
none are excused from this, do sin according to the sin of the
people, let him bring for his sin, which he hath sinned a young
bullock without blemish unto the Lord for a sin offering." Going to offer it up for his
sin. Going to be sacrificed. And he
shall bring the bullock unto the door of the tabernacle of
the congregation before the Lord. and shall lay his hand upon the
bullock's head, and kill the bullock before the Lord. And the priest that is anointed
shall take of the bullock's blood, and bring it to the tabernacle
of the congregation, And the priest shall dip his finger in
the blood, and sprinkle of the blood seven times before the
Lord, before the veil of the sanctuary. And the priest shall
put some of the blood upon the horns of the altar of sweet incense
before the Lord. which is the tabernacle, or is
in the tabernacle of the congregation, and shall pour all the blood,
the remaining blood of the bullock, at the bottom of the altar of
the burnt offering, which is at the door of the tabernacle
of the congregation. And he shall take off from it
all the fat of the bullock. The emphasis here is on death. If you ever have a doubt, read
this. Read this passage. Did it really
die? Well, you're going to take off
from it all the fat of the bullock for the sin offering. The fat
that covereth the inwards and all the fat that is upon the
inwards. all the intestines, the internal
organs, internal cavities, and the two kidneys, and the fat
that is upon them, which is by the flanks, and the call above
the liver with the kidneys, it shall he take away. as it is written, or as it was
taken, off from the bullock of the sacrifice of peace offerings,
and the priest shall burn them upon the altar of the burnt offering." And the skin, had no doubt, is
death. Sin requires death, not just
a wounding. Not with just withdrawing a little
bit and saving it for the next time, it was death. And the skin
of the bullock and all his flesh with his head and with his legs
and with his inwards and his dung, even the whole bullock
shall he carry forth without the camp unto a clean place where
the ashes are poured out and burn him on the wood with fire
where the ashes are poured out shall he be burned the emphasis
is on the death of this sacrifice the blood is the emphasis of
the death of this sacrifice. It's not merely suffering, but
it's suffering unto death. It means the taking of a life. And to put it briefly, a sin
against the Lord God of heaven, Jehovah God, deserves death,
and not only deserves it, will receive death. And what the Lord God of heaven
said by the prophet Ezekiel still stands true, the soul that sinneth,
it shall die. The only way by which the Lord
God could fulfill His threatening sentence and yet forgive guilty
men was that Jesus Christ, His Son, come into this world and
offer up His life as a sacrifice in the place of ours. His life
because of who He is, because of the dignity of His person,
the majesty of His nature, was so infinite in value that He could give His life not
only in the place of one, but for the whole multitude of men
who would believe on him, all that the Father giveth me shall
come to me. And he that cometh to me I will
in no wise cast out." We're saved by the suffering unto death of
the Lord Jesus Christ. Peter said, for Christ also hath
once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might
bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh." Paul told
those believers in that region of Galatia, he said, Christ hath
redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for
us. For it is written, cursed is
everyone that hangeth on a tree. And he told those believers in
Corinth, He said, for He hath made Him to be sin for us who
knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God
in Him. And when sin was found on Him,
God killed Him. He killed Him. All the sacrifices
under the law When their blood was poured out,
they were typical of the life of the Lord Jesus Christ given
for us as a sacrifice in the place instead of those who had
offended unto death against the law of God. And therefore, we're
doomed to die. The sentence of death has been
passed. on everyone. We're dead men walking. Dead
men walking. And we can never be unclear about
this in our preaching. We have to keep, just keep insisting
on it. Claudia and I were talking about
this the other day. People not understanding. You wish somehow or another you
could just convince people. But I can't. I tried over, over,
over, over again. You just say it and you pray
that the Spirit of God will bring it home to us. How many times
did you hear? How many years? How many decades did you hear
before you ever heard? How many times? I heard it presented so many
ways. There's no way of salvation under
heaven but by faith in the substitutionary sacrifice of the Lamb of God
in our place. And the way by which we're redeemed
from eternal wrath is by the Lord Jesus Christ having stood
as a substitute for us. Dying in our place, as it's written,
the chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and with His stripes
we're healed. In the death of the Lord Jesus
Christ, that shedding of the blood was made very conspicuous. Maybe it was to refresh our memories
about the teaching of these pictures under the Mosaic Law. The Lord
Jesus Christ was scourged until He bled. His temples were pierced and
lacerated with a crown of thorns. His hands and His feet were nailed
to that cross. His side was opened by that soldier's
spear from which flowed blood and water." Everything about
it, blood. And you know, there's a lot of
ways that people can die without shedding blood. But our Savior
was ordained to die by death in which the shedding of blood
was so conspicuous. in order to link Him forever
with those sacrifices which were made as types and symbols of
His great atoning work for us. Look what it says here in verse
6. It is speaking of this priest. That priest shall dip his finger
in the blood, the blood of that bullock, that blood of that bullock
of the sin offering. and sprinkle the blood seven
times before the Lord, before the veil of the sanctuary. That
veil concealed that inner dwelling place of God. And this veil was
to be sprinkled seven times. Everything was done perfectly.
Nothing was done halfway. It was always perfect. There was to be a perfect presentation
of the precious blood of Christ before the place where God was
concealed from us. An atonement must be made. And
then as he says here in verse 7, And the priest shall put some
of the blood upon the horns of the altar of sweet incense before
the Lord. He would take some of that blood
and he was to smear it on the four horns of this golden altar,
which stood just in front of the veil and near that golden
candlestick. This altar was intended for the
burning of sweet incense upon it. And the priest was to smear
with the blood the four horns of this altar. I think about this, I think about
reading this sweet incense. I come home on Monday night,
I have two services at the prison and I come home and I can't get
the smell of that stinking incense out of my nose and off my clothes. That's some of the stinkinest
stuff and I think that doesn't, it doesn't sound like, it doesn't
smell like anything when I think about this sweet incense. There's
nothing sweet about it. The Buddhists must burn a quart
of that stuff every week. And then the Wiccans come along
and they burn their truckload of it. And then the Odinists
come along and they burn a trainload of it and it just burns. When
they open that door out into that secured corridor, and then
they open that door out onto the yard. I think, man, leave
those doors open. Let's get some fresh air in here.
You can't breathe. But I think about this sweet
incense. I think, I don't believe there's
any comparison with this sweet incense. And the priest was to
take that blood And he was to smear it on the horns of that
altar of sweet incense. And there's something else about
this. It's before the Lord. Don't ever forget that. It's
before the Lord. This blood is presented to the
Lord. Don't bring it to me. Don't do
it for me. It's the Lord God of heaven that
we've offended. any benefit to us as a result
of it being presented before the Lord. It was put there so that the
Lord would see it. He said, when I see the blood,
when I see the blood, I'll pass over you. 59 times in these first
chapters of Leviticus, this expression, before the Lord, is used. And the reason is because we
have to be reminded continually of it. We'll start thinking that
we have to see it. No. It's the Lord. The offended
one. The one to whom atonement must
be made. Whether anybody, any person saw
it or not, didn't matter. It's God's sight of that great
sacrifice which saves us. And the blood is is where the
Lord sees it in reference to us. This blood, it doesn't change
God's character with reference to us. The blood of Christ was
not offered to make the Lord God of heaven love us. His sacrifice
is the result of God's love. You know, all we have to do is
just think about it for a minute and we know that We know from
the scriptures it's so, but if we think about it, it's logical. We would never kill our child
for somebody else so that we could start loving them. I just
believe we'd do it beforehand. We'd do it beforehand. The Lord
God of heaven loved us with an everlasting love, every one for
whom Christ died. And I tell you, He never changes.
And His love never changes. His love for us never changes. The sacrifice of the Lord Jesus
Christ is the result of God's love for us, not the cause of
it. All the claims of justice must be met. The judge of all
the earth must do right. And He will not, He cannot, suffer
sin to go unpunished. And He's given us in Christ that
which satisfies every claim of infinite justice against us.
He can be just, and yet the justifier of him that believeth. By executing
that death penalty upon our surety, upon our substitute, He declares
that whosoever believeth on him shall not perish but have everlasting
life. The father looks on Christ's
great sacrifice and he takes great delight in that sacrifice
because he sees in that sacrifice his own holiness honored and
glorified, his justice satisfied. This blood, not only is it presented
to the Lord, but this blood gives power to the intercession of
the Lord Jesus Christ for us. This altar of sweet incense was
a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ pleading before the Father for
us. But have you ever noticed, and I know you have, I hope I
don't tell you anything new. If I do, don't listen to it.
But I know you've, you know, every one of these things, people
have, have, mankind has built whole religions around every
one of these things that pictures Christ. They don't see Christ,
they're just still seeing that thing. And whole religions are
built around it. This altar of sweet incense is
a picture of Christ pleading for us. We don't have to burn
it because He's still pleading for us. He's still making intercession
for the transgressors with the Father. And the horns of this
altar show us His power, the power of His intercession. That's what the horns pictured. The power of His intercession
for us. And the power of Christ's intercession
for us lies in His sacrifice, in that blood. He said, it's
finished. How do I know it's finished?
Because He died. No. It's because God raised Him
up. Because God raised Him up. I
know it was done. I know it was finished. Where
is He now? He's seated in the place of honor because He fulfilled
the Father's will for us. Oh, the power of His resurrection
lies in the blood. In the blood. This blood, it's
a comfort to me. It's a comfort to you when you
show that this shows that He was really a man. That He could
represent us. Here's the sure testimony of
His identification with His people for whom He makes intercession.
He's qualified to plead for us. He's a man. And it shows that
He fulfilled it all for us, all that covenant. The Lord Jesus
Christ was in covenant with the Father to finish the transgression,
to make an end of sins, to make reconciliation for iniquity,
and to bring in everlasting righteousness. Did He do it? Sure did. Sure
did. It was by His death. His blood
being the evidence of His death that He could say, it's finished. I finished the work. He finished
it. And here's the power of His pleading.
He's fulfilled the Father's will. And He has His blood to prove
it. I did it. I did it. And it's
blood. It's the only thing that makes
what we do acceptable before God, our worship. I'm telling you, they keep coming
up with new gimmicks and new games, and they're calling it
worship. They were comparing two people
in our newspaper the other day, two preachers. And again, I use
that word loosely. Y'all read our newspaper. Very
enlightening, religiously speaking. And they were comparing the contemporary
with traditional. I tell you, I just think about
some of these hymns that we sing. That one we sang last night,
There is a Fountain Filled with Blood, written by William Cowper. This stuff they call contemporary,
have you ever heard one that honors God? They don't do it. Oh, I tell you, it makes you
want to puke. Excuse my French, but it does. And they're calling it worship.
In Louisiana, they don't call it contemporary and traditional.
They call it regular and spicy, because that's the way you talk
about Tabasco sauce and food there. It's either regular or
it's spicy. I like the regular. I like traditional. Old-fashioned,
call it what you want. This one man told me, he said,
we have low church. He prefers high church. I thought,
man, low church. You know, my mind just started
running. And then he explained to me what he meant. Man, I think
it's the greatest thing. It is so simple. People come
in, I don't know what they look for, but it has to be awfully
boring to them if they're looking for something else. I'm telling
you, I have my schedule written down on the order of service
written down on my bulletin and it never deviates. If it does,
I've made a mistake. Because I play the guitar for
our music and I don't want to pick the guitar up and put it
on and then take it off and put it down and have to pick it up
and put it back on again. Just every once in a while, people
start, they get to anticipating, because they know that's the
way I always do it. The way I've done it for almost 15 years,
since our piano player quit. And so, you know, they'll fold
up their songbook and stick it in the thing, and I said, and
let's turn and sing something. I'll do it just to make them
get the songbook back out of the rack, you know. because they've
already put the songbook up and they're about halfway sitting
down. And I said, let's remain standing and sing one more. That's
the only way I'll deviate from it. Is it boring? No. I just found
the most efficient way to get through all the preliminaries
and get to the main course. Don't fill up on hush puppies
when it's all you can eat catfish. I'll tell you that story one
of these days. Man, I'm telling you, these places,
they'd love for you to fill up on that salad. Why fill up on a salad when you've
got fried chicken? And why wear yourself out on
all these preliminaries when you can get to the meat, get
to the message, get to it? That's so boring, though. sing
our call to worship, pray together, read the scriptures, sing two
hymns, and I preach. I preach. You know what makes worship,
worship? It's not the stained glass windows. It's not the pictures we got
hanging on the wall. It's not the drums and all of
this. And I have nothing against Music
is all you know. I love music. But I tell you
what, it's worship when you start lifting up Christ. You know what
gives it, makes it worship? The blood. It's the blood. It's atoning sacrifice of the
Lord Jesus Christ that gives prayer and praise and service,
acceptance in the sight of God. There's absolutely nothing in
all of this without the blood, without the sprinkling of this
blood. That incense is nothing if there's
no blood. They can burn a trainload of
it. They can burn a world of it. But without the blood, it's a
stench in the nostrils of God. And I'm talking about everything
we claim to do without the blood. It's nothing. Prayer. I've been preaching for 45 years. I've stood up in front of many
a congregation and I've had to pray publicly. all these years, and still that's
the hardest thing for me to do, is pray publicly. But I know this, it's not how
I pray, it's the blood that makes it acceptable before a holy God,
and that's the only reason I keep doing it. I had a man come to service one
time. He said, I've written out this prayer I'd like to read
during our service. I told him, we don't need it.
Don't need it. He said, well, how do you know
it wasn't going to go up with the blood? I just trust me. It's the blood. You try to pray,
and I mean the words that just Your thoughts, man, all of a
sudden, you're a thousand miles away. Just remember the blood. So it makes them acceptable before
the Lord God of heaven because you can pray the most beautiful
prayers that can ever be prayed. And you can get all the vows
and the these and the thus's all in the right place. But without
the blood, it's cursing God. Cursing God. The blood. It's our best prayers and abomination
before God is spitting in the face of God without the blood. We're justified by faith without
works because of the blood. It's the blood of the Lord Jesus
Christ that makes this flesh acceptable. before a thrice holy
God. Holy, holy, holy. He's holy. His holiness is holy. And the holiness of His holiness
is holy. Once was enough. But can you
imagine? And we would attempt to offer
before the Lord God of heaven a prayer without the blood. Have all the good works you can,
but keep them just as far away as you can from the sacrifice
of Christ, because it's the blood that gives us acceptance, not
what we do. Not what we do. Any kind of worship,
every kind of worship that we can render to the Lord God of
heaven will be acceptable with God in proportion as we exhibit
it with the blood on the altar. The blood. There's no comfort in death.
There's no hope of entering heaven except as we're resting upon
the precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the heart
of the gospel. It's the life of the soul. And
you take away the blood and you have no gospel. There is no good
news. There's no life whatsoever. It's
the blood. There's only one way into life.
and it's sprinkled with the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. And
that priest shall put some of the blood upon the horns of the
altar of sweet incense before the Lord, which is in the tabernacle
of the congregation, and shall pour all the blood of the bullock
at the bottom of the altar of the burnt offering, which is
at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation." The blood. May the Lord bless these thoughts
to your hearts this morning. Thank you, Brother Gene.