For as much as you know that
you were not redeemed with corruptible things as silver and gold from
your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers,
but with the precious blood of Christ as of a lamb without blemish
and without spot, who verily was foreordained before the foundation
of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you.
who by him do believe in God that raised him up from the dead
and gave him glory, that your faith and hope might be in God,
the precious blood of Christ. There's nothing, there's nothing
in this world more precious than his blood. And I have three truths
tonight about his precious blood that I want to speak to us about.
Christ's blood is precious because, first of all, of who He is. Second,
His blood is precious because of what it accomplishes. And
third, His blood is precious both to God and man. So first,
Christ's blood is precious because of who He is. Who He is. At his baptism, you two young
men are being baptized tonight, so was the Lord Jesus Christ
so many years ago. He was baptized by John the Baptist
in the River Jordan. And when he was baptized, there
came a voice from heaven saying, this is my beloved son in whom
I am well pleased. Whose voice was that? Well, we
know it was the voice of God the Father. It was God the Father's
voice acknowledging that this man, this man that John the Baptist
baptized. At first, remember, John, he
said, I need to be baptized of you. He recognized the preciousness
of the Lord Jesus Christ. He said, I need to be baptized
of you, and you come to me asking me to baptize you. And our Lord
said, suffer it to be now. that we might fulfill all righteousness. And when he was baptized, as
I said, there came that voice from heaven, the voice of God
the Father saying, this is my beloved son in whom I am well
pleased. But how can that be? How can
that be that God's son was baptized? God is spirit. Can a spirit be baptized? Can a spirit be put under the
water? No. How can a spirit be baptized? Oh, but the eternal son of God. the eternal Son of God, he who
is one with the Father and with God, the Holy Spirit, had taken
that body into union with his person. That holy thing, the
angel told Mary, which shall be born of thee shall be called
the Son of God. His blood is precious because
of who he is. He's not an angel manifested
in the flesh. He is God Almighty, the creator
of all things, and I would say this also, as the apostle did,
not only is He the creator of all things, but all things were
created for Him, for His glory. All things are created for God's
glory. Men try to reverse that order,
and we get to thinking that everything is created for us in this whole
universe. Everything is run for man. We've
got that just backwards. Everything is for His glory.
And everything will bring glory to God. The saved will glorify
His grace. The lost will glorify His justice. But all men are created and all
things are created for His glory. No other motive No other motive
would be worthy of God to create than His own glory. So first
of all, Christ's blood is precious because of who He is. But second,
Christ's blood is precious for its accomplishments. And I have,
I believe, five things I want us to look at this evening that
the blood of Jesus Christ accomplishes. It doesn't just try. It doesn't
just give its best attempt to do these things. No, the blood
of Jesus Christ actually accomplishes these things, these truths. First of all, His blood accomplishes
the remission of the sins of His people. And I want you to
look at these verses with me. Let's turn first to Hebrews chapter
9. Let me say that again. His blood
accomplishes the remission of the sins of his people. Here
in Hebrews chapter 9 and verse 22, the apostle, and we believe
of course it was the apostle Paul writing the letter of Hebrews,
but he said, verse 22, begins with the word and. That's a connecting
word, isn't it? And almost all things are by
the law purged, washed with blood. And without shedding of blood
is no remission. Now, when he mentions the law,
of course, he's speaking about the law that was given on Mount
Sinai, that Old Testament dispensation. And he tells us, you notice,
almost Almost, he said. All things are purged or washed
with blood. There are few exceptions. There
were few exceptions. Some cleansing, ceremonial cleansing,
of course, was accomplished by washing in water. Almost, he
said, and we know. And almost all things are, by
the law, purged or washed by blood. As I said, almost. There were some exceptions. Some
things were purged or cleansed by water. But, here's the point,
but when it came to sin, when it comes to the remission of
sin, there are no exceptions. Without
the shedding of blood, there is no remission. His blood is
precious because it accomplishes the remission of the sins of
his people. What was commanded by the law,
we read in chapter 10 of Hebrews, was just a shadow of good things
to come. The blood of those animals that
were sacrificed and offered under that old dispensation, they typically
pictured the remission of sins. But the blood of Christ is precious
because it doesn't just picture the remission of sins, it obtains
the remission of sins of all his people. Look at another verse
in Colossians chapter 1. Colossians chapter 1. And verse 20, verse 14, we'll get to verse
20 in just a minute. Verse 14, in whom we have redemption
through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins. His blood is precious
to every child of God because His blood obtains the remission
of sins. His blood washes away our sin. The blood of Jesus Christ, His
Son, the Apostle John says, cleanseth us from all sin. The second thing,
and this is Colossians 1 and verse 20, His blood accomplishes
peace and reconciliation. of His people with God, and having
made peace through the blood of His cross by Him to reconcile
all things unto Himself. By Him, I say, whether they be
things in earth or things in heaven. All who are given and
have peace with God, all who are reconciled to God, are so
because of the blood of His cross. There is no reconciliation, there
is no peace with God apart from the blood of Jesus Christ. When Christ actually shed his
precious blood, the Old Testament saints, Abraham, Moses, David,
all those who had lived and died, they were already in heaven.
They were already there because God faithfulness, knowing that
Christ would come, that He would shed His blood in the fullness
of the time, God's time. God sent forth His Son, made
of a woman, made under the law, that He might redeem us from
the curse of the law. Even those saints who lived,
they were not saved, they were not reconciled to God, they did
not have peace with God through the blood of those animals. through
their obedience to those sacrifices? No, it was only through the blood
of Jesus Christ that anyone is reconciled to God. We were talking after the service
this morning, some of us men, and the fact of Adam, the fact
that he was holy when he was created, he was righteous and
then he fell, and then he was reconciled to God. We believe
he was saved. He was reconciled to God. That
peace that he had forfeited, he now had when the Lord clothed
him with those coats of skins. The sacrifice of an animal, typical
of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. How was Adam reconciled? How
did he have peace again with God? Through the blood of Christ. There is no other way. His blood
is precious. because it accomplishes peace
and reconciliation to God for all of his people. This is the
reason if a person, you know, there's a lot of argument, not
among God's people necessarily, but if the atonement is general,
some people say, well, he died for all the sins of all men.
I hear people say that, don't you? You hear preachers say that?
died for all the sins of all the people of the world. If I
believe that, I would believe that everybody's going to be
saved. I would have to believe that simply because of who he
is. No, his blood accomplished everything
that God intended, everything that God purposed. And if men
would just take the scripture and look at what The Bible says
about the blood of Christ what it accomplished. We would have to believe in what
is called a limited atonement. That doesn't mean that the efficacy
of his blood is limited. His blood is infinite in value,
but the purpose of God from before the foundation of the world is
accomplished. He accomplished peace and reconciliation
for all of His people. Number three, His blood accomplishes
the justification of His people. If you look in Romans chapter
5, what is justification? It is God declaring a person
to be righteous, to be just. Romans chapter 5. And verse 9, much more than being now justified. How? By his blood. By his blood. And the emphasis
here is on his blood. Being justified, much more being
now justified, not by the blood of bulls and goats, not even
by the blood of an innocent man, if that could be found, a man
who was only a man and yet innocent, no. The emphasis is on the word
His, His, much more than being now justified by His blood. No one else's blood would do
it, but His blood does it. His blood accomplishes the justification
of all His people. All His people, all His chosen
people are declared righteous, just before God Almighty, by
God Almighty, because of the shed blood of Christ, the precious
blood of Christ. Fourth, His blood accomplishes
the ratification of the New Covenant or the New Testament. Remember,
the night before he was crucified with his disciples, he instituted
what we call the Lord's Supper. He said, this is my blood of
the New Testament. This is my blood of the new covenant. Same word, testament and covenant.
Sometimes it's translated covenant, sometimes translated testament.
But look with me in Hebrews 9. His blood accomplishes the ratification
of the new covenant. Hebrews chapter 9 and verse 17. For a testament of man's last
will and testament. I'm sure that many of us in this
building, we have a written document somewhere, our last will and
testament. And if you change your mind about
that tonight, you can go tomorrow and change it. You can change
it. Maybe you wanted to leave all
of your goods to a certain person and they've done something that
causes you to write them out of your will. You're free to
do it. It's all yours until you die. But once a person dies, that
testament cannot be changed. There's an executor of that will and his
responsibility or her responsibility is to make sure that everything
is given out as the person who died wrote it out and wanted
it to be done. To be an executor of a will,
I was talking to a brother just the other day. He told me he's
the executor of his father's will. That's a very serious thing,
I think. to be an executor because you
want to be so careful you do everything exactly as that person
wanted to do. You want to honor them. But the
point is here in Hebrews chapter 9 and verse 17, the scripture
says, for a testament, for a will, is a force after men are dead,
not before. Not before. You say, well, my
dad has put me in his will and And I'm just gonna go tell him,
I want you to go ahead and give me my part. He doesn't have to do that. He
might, he may not. But if he's put you in his will
and he dies, then whatever he willed for you, you should receive. But it's not in force until a
person has died. For a testament is a force after
men are dead, otherwise it is of no strength. at all while
the testator lived. Now the blood of Jesus Christ,
he's the testator, he died, he shed his blood, he said this
is my blood of the New Testament, of the new covenant, so all the
testament is ratified with his blood and all the promises, all
the promises that he has for his people are sure to be given
because the will has been ratified by His blood. And one of the
promises is, and it is a great promise, I will be to them a
God. If God is your God, and He is,
if He's chosen you and redeemed you through Christ our Lord,
you have everything. You can want nothing. You can
want nothing. if God is your God. I will be their God and they
shall be my people. Their sins and their iniquities
will I remember no more. My law will I write upon their
hearts. They shall not depart from me
and I shall not depart from them. We have so many of those exceeding
great and precious promises in that eternal covenant that the
blood of Jesus Christ ratified. And the last thing, his blood
accomplishes the opening, the opening of heaven to his people. If you look in Hebrews 10 verse
19, having therefore brethren boldness,
to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus. The blood of Jesus, the blood
of Jesus Christ is precious for it opens heaven's doors to all
his people. Now in the passage here, what
he was talking about You know, in that tabernacle that God gave
the instructions to Moses, it had two compartments. It had
the holy place and it had the most holy place. And in that
most holy place, that's where God resided. His manifest presence,
the Shekinah, was between the cherubims above the mercy seat.
And the only person who ever went in there, had a right to
go in there, was the high priest, and he went in as a representative
for all of Israel, once a year, but not without blood. He would have been signing his
death certificate, his death warrant, if he were to go in
that of holies without the blood of that sacrifice. Well, the
apostle tells us, that the blood of Jesus Christ has opened up
the way for us into the most holiest. That which was pictured,
that which was typified by the holy of holies in that tabernacle,
heaven itself, heaven's doors are swung open for his people
by the blood of Jesus Christ our Lord. And third, Christ's blood is
precious to whom? It's precious because of who
He is. It's precious because of what it accomplishes. But
to whom is the blood of Jesus Christ precious? Well, first
of all, His blood is precious to God. It is precious to God
for with it Christ pleased His Father. He pleased His Father. He did the will of his father,
perfectly, absolutely, in laying down his life. The father said,
this is my well-beloved son in whom I am well-pleased, well-pleased. He was well-pleased with his
perfect obedience, his perfect obedience to the law of God,
to God his father. He perfectly obeyed. And in doing
that, we know he established righteousness. And that righteousness
is imputed to everyone that believes. That's the righteousness with
which we may appear before God, dressed in those garments of
salvation. And that's his active, men say
that's his active obedience and his passive obedience was he
suffered on the cross. He suffered the death of death
and dying for his people, shedding his blood. Number two, his blood
is precious to chosen, redeemed sinners. His blood is precious
to you tonight, if you know him. And it's precious to you because
you know, you know in your heart that he is all your salvation,
that you would have no hope whatsoever. You'd be in this world without
any hope. if it were not for the blood
of Jesus Christ, the precious blood of Jesus Christ, God's
son. That's one way a person may know
if God has worked a work of grace in their hearts. Is he precious
to you? Is Christ precious to you? Peter
said to you that believe he is precious. Is Christ precious
to you tonight? Is he everything to you? I trust
so. David's going to come.