I came into contact with Wayne
when one of the brother preachers told me, he said, hey, I met
a preacher. He looks like you. And I said,
that's an awful thing to say about anybody. You shouldn't
say that. But that was my first word about
Wayne. And it wasn't too long after
that we made contact. And I tell you, Brother Wayne
and Brother Drew there, Two of my favorite people to be around.
Drew, I've known him for about 20 years. And 11 years ago, my
son moved down there, he and his wife. And there's now two
grandchildren, so we go down and visit the grandchildren.
And while we're visiting the grandchildren, we kind of visit
with our son. and Drew some, too. No, but Drew
has been, we've, it's just been such a blessing as Bonnie and
I got to know Drew and Melinda over the years. As, well, when
we first would go down there to visit, Nathan and his wife
just lived in a little apartment, so we would stay at Drew and
Melinda's. And, which meant we stayed up. It was a great time,
and brother Wayne, always such an encouragement to me. Every
time we talked to one another on the phone, I feel better after
the conversation than beforehand, so I'm glad of that. I preached
in my first conference 34 years ago in the spring of 1984. There's
a whole lot of preachers, many of whom you would know. And I
was sitting there thinking I was the youngest preacher there.
I was 29, the youngest preacher in that conference. And then
as Drew was getting near done, I thought, I'm the old guy at
this one. I'm the oldest one here. And
so time has passed. Would you open your Bibles to
Exodus chapter 12? Exodus chapter 12, while you're turning there, in the book of Hebrews chapter
12 and verse 24, it speaks of the blood of sprinkling. That
is, of course, speaking of the blood of Christ. The blood of
sprinkling that speaks better things than the blood of Abel. And then, even though I told
Wayne that the text for this evening is in Exodus chapter
12, I wanna read you a few verses from chapter 11, and you can
follow along there if you want, beginning in verse four of chapter
11 in Exodus. And Moses said, thus saith the
Lord about midnight, will I go out into the midst of Egypt,
and all the firstborn in the land of Egypt shall die. from the firstborn of Pharaoh
that sitteth upon his throne, even unto the firstborn of the
maidservant that is behind the mill, and all the firstborn of
beasts. And there shall be a great cry
throughout all the land of Egypt, such as there was none like it,
nor shall be like it any more. but against any of the children
of Israel shall not a dog move his tongue against man or beast,
that ye may know how that the Lord doth put a difference between
the Egyptians and Israel." Now we often talk about the gospel. We, the preachers that we regularly
associate with, We make much of the fact that every time we
preach, it's our intention to preach the gospel. But just what
is the gospel? Well, there's a historical gospel. That is, you can preach it historically
as a record of some events that took place in space and time. Beginning with, as the apostle
says in 1 Corinthians chapter 15, he says, I now again tell
you the gospel which I first delivered to you, how that Christ
died for our sins according to the scriptures. That he was buried
and was raised on the third day according to the scriptures.
Now that's something that actually happened within history, and
Paul says that's the gospel. And then you can talk about the
theological gospel. And generally speaking, us Gentiles,
that's kind of the way we think. And we like our systematic theology,
and so we talk about being, we believe sovereign grace, or we
believe something like the five points of Calvinism, or whatever
it is, but we've got a theological system that describes the gospel. And nothing wrong with that.
You can describe the gospel theologically. You can describe it as a legal
or judicial gospel. That's how Paul cast it. Particularly
in the book of Romans, He understood Roman law, he understood Roman
culture, and therefore he cast the gospel in the terms of a
courtroom. And therefore we get the ideas
of justification and imputation and things like that. And you
can talk about a personal gospel because we can talk about salvation
as it is applied to individuals. And how that Jesus Christ is
the savior, not only of a multitude that no man can number, but he's
the savior of each individual within that multitude. And you can speak of the gospel
in terms of sovereign grace. In the book of Isaiah chapter
52, and Paul quotes this text of scripture in Romans chapter
10 and says it's a reference to gospel preaching. But it says,
how beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings
good news, who publishes glad tidings, who publishes peace,
who says unto Israel, your God reigns. That's the gospel. Your God reigns. And you think
about that. There is no good news if the
one who says he's going to save you is not in charge. When we were kids, we learned
a lot of stories, fairy tales they called them, but a lot of
them involved, you know, like you're Prince Charming, damsel
in distress, and that kind of thing, and they picture the princess
up in a tower, you know, and then the prince would rush in
and rescue her. Well, imagine such a scenario.
And this heroic young man goes to rescue this Fair young Damsel
being held up in the tower. And he runs up in there and he
throws open the door and he says, Damsel, or whatever her name
is, I've come to rescue you. And she says, well, I appreciate
the effort, but look behind you. And he turns around and there's
several armed soldiers. Well, we appreciate the fact
that such a person might have a desire to save, but he's not
in control of the situation, is he? He's no good as a rescuer
because he can't deal with those that are intent on stopping his
rescue. Well, our God is in charge. And
that's why we can have confidence that when, like Jonah said, salvation
is of the Lord, well, that only means something because the Lord,
our God, reigns. We can talk of the gospel in
those terms. But no matter how we express the truth of the gospel,
there is a unifying theme. that must always be present,
a concept found in every way of telling it out, and that is
the concept of blood. Blood. The gospel is told, is
written in blood. In Genesis chapter 1 and 2, God
sets the stage for human history by creating the world and then
creating two human beings to begin its habitation. And then
in chapter three, and we don't know how long Adam and Eve endured,
but in the third chapter of the Bible, they rebel against God.
And man fell, and we find the first promise of the gospel,
and how was that promise of the gospel, which was that the seed
of the woman would crush the head of the serpent, how did
God seal that promise? He killed animals, something
that had never happened to that point. He slew animals, not just
one animal, if you read it that way, it said the skins of animals.
He killed them, shed their blood to make coverings for Adam and
Eve. So the very first promise of
the gospel is attended with the shedding of blood. Noah, he is
told to bring two of every kind of animal on the ark except seven
of all the clean ones. And why is that? Because the
clean animals are the ones that are used for sacrifice. I mean,
if you only took two of them, and as soon as you got off the
ark, you killed them, well, that'd be the end of that species, wouldn't
it? So God had him take seven of those. Why? So that blood
could be shed in the worship of God after the flood, and yet
there'd still be sufficient animals left to repopulate the earth.
So you have this wonderful picture of the gospel in the ark, and
yet the only way the animal kingdom actually survives is by the shedding
of blood. And you've got, of course, the
story of Abraham as he's going up the mountain with Isaac. And
Isaac says, Father, I see you've got the tinderbox with the fire
in it. And I got this wood. He knew what was going on. He
knew they were going up to worship God and that there's no way to
worship God without a sacrifice. And so he said, where is the
lamb for the burnt offering? And Abraham answered. God will
provide for himself a lamb for the burnt offering. They say,
I didn't say anything about blood. Well, when you're offering something,
blood's involved. You don't get from live animal
to a sacrifice without shedding blood. And the law, when the
law was put into effect, blood everywhere. Really? I mean, the blood, they killed
animals and took their blood and put it on every bit of furnishing
in the tabernacle. sanctify. They put it on the
priests. Blood everywhere. And as the
temple worship went on, it was a bloody religion. Really, the
religion of God is a bloody religion. John the Baptist, what was probably
the most powerful thing he ever said, behold the Lamb of God
that takes away the sin of the world. They said the word blood's
not in there. He called him a lamb because
lambs are what they use for sacrifice, and that's how the sin was put
away. In Revelation chapter 12 verse 11, it says, believers
are triumphant over the devil, that accuser of the brethren,
how? By the word of their testimony and the blood of the lamb. We
speak of the doctrines of salvation, doctrines like atonement, redemption,
justification, sanctification but here's what we read in the
scriptures it is the blood that makes atonement for the soul
we have redemption through his blood we are justified by his
blood and Hebrews 13 verse 12 says that Jesus sanctified the
people with his blood everywhere you turn in the gospel there's
the blood pretty important point We speak of the gospel as the
new covenant, and Jesus Christ said that the cup of the Lord's
table, he said, this is the new covenant in my blood. People here, well, about 20 years
ago, there came a form of theology called new covenant theology.
And doctrinally speaking, I agree with as much of it as I know.
But they start talking about covenants all the time. Okay,
that's fine. But let's remember this. The
new covenant is ratified, is put in place, is empowered by
the blood of Jesus Christ. No blood, no covenant. It's not called the new covenant
in his love or the new covenant even in his righteousness, grace,
and mercy. He said, this is the new covenant
in my blood. The blood is of immense power. Scriptures say if we confess
our sins, he's faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse
us from all unrighteousness. If we walk in the light as he
is in the light, we have fellowship with one another and the blood
of Jesus Christ, God's son, cleanses us from all sin. Have you ever
tried to cleanse yourself from your sin? In fact, have you ever even tried
to stop making yourself even more foul? Just try to stop making
yourself any dirtier than you already are. Have you ever had
the power to put away a sin? For all of your religious efforts,
for all your vows, for all your resolutions, for all your determinations,
you've never been able to overcome one sin, have you? Oh, God may
have given you some grace to restrain some of the outbursts
of it, but you know it's all still there. And you know full
well that for all your ceremonial observances or all your religious
diligence, not one of your sins was ever put away by that, was
it? Why, for all of human history, men have been trying to put away
sin. That's what religion's about.
And yet it's never been done. In fact, even that religious
form that God instituted on Mount Sinai with the sacrifice of all
those animals and all the blood being shed there, it says the
blood of bulls and goats and ashes of a heifer spring, it
can't do it. It never got it done. Not all of that blood of animals
shed even according to the command of God. Not one sin was ever
put away by the shedding of that blood. Only the blood of Christ has
the power, the effectiveness to actually cleanse us from sin. And the lack of blood puts an
utter stop to the whole engine of salvation. For without the
shedding of blood, there is no remission of sin. Now I mean
no insult to God in what I'm about to say, but not all of
the attributes of God joined together and energized by his
infinite power can save one sinner apart from the blood. Now I say I mean no insult, and
that's not an insult to God, as we'll see, because the blood
testifies something of the glory of God. There's a reason that
not even God in all of his power can save apart from the blood. And all of our fine theology,
carefully engineered into a beautiful, systematic religion, is worthless
without blood. We say we believe in free and
sovereign grace, and I'm glad we do. I'm not trying to belittle
that. I'm just, understand this, and
you know, when I speak to people, You know, I've been here once
before, and there's some debate over whether it was 11 or 12
years ago, but it's somewhere about in there. And, but I don't
know your hearts, and so I'm going to talk to you in such
a way that if you're lost, this might do you some good, might
do you some good. But you say, and I hope it's
true of you, that you believe in free and sovereign grace,
but I want you to understand, your faith in free and sovereign
grace will not cleanse you from sin. Not all that fine theology,
as good as it is, will cleanse you from sin. And if you appear
before the Lord in that day and you say, well, Lord, Lord, did
we not believe in free and sovereign grace? And did we not stand up
for it in the day of evil when it was being attacked on every
side? And did we not join ourselves with the church, relatively few
in number, and suffer whatever comes as a consequence in that?
And the Lord will say, depart from me, I never knew you. Why? No blood. Two and a half years ago, no,
excuse me, a little over two years ago, I think it was in
July, so it might have been exactly two years ago for all I know,
I bought a car. And it is the nicest car I've
ever owned. I like it more than any other
car I've ever owned. It's a 2014 Buick Regal, red, maroonish red,
silver sporty. I really like that car. And it
looked good when I got it. And I'm thinking, you know, when
I bought it, somebody else had already owned it for two years
and put 23,000 miles on it. So I figured, man, how beautiful
this car must have been. when it first came off the assembly
line. But you know something? That car, right as it rolled
off that assembly line, was no more useful than a rusted out
derelict in the junkyard. It was just as useless until
somebody put gas in it. And I don't care how fine your
theology is, it's absolutely useless until there's blood in
it. Christ is able to save to the
uttermost them that come to God by him, but his saving intercession
has the power to save only because he offered himself unto God once
for all, without spot, by the shedding of his own blood. Safely say, where there is no
blood, there is no gospel. When I was seven years old, we
moved from the Washington, D.C. area to Huntington, West Virginia,
which is right there where Ohio, Kentucky, and West Virginia come
together, right there on the Ohio River. It's where my dad
was born and raised. And we joined a Baptist church.
And as was my mother's nature, she loved children and she wanted
to teach them about Christ, so she got in the Sunday school
department and began teaching kids. And now my mother, and
I thank God for this, she didn't think there was anything in the
Bible that you were supposed to hide from children about the truth.
And so she told children, small children, about the crucifixion,
about Jesus Christ being nailed to a tree and his blood being
shed. And they came up to my mother
and they said, you can't tell that kind of stuff to kids. You
can't tell them about the blood. That'll scare them. And my mother, who was so very
practical. In the way she applied scripture,
she simply said, without the shedding of blood, there is no
remission for sins. If we're going to tell these
kids that they need to ask God for forgiveness, how can we do
that if we don't tell them the basis upon which such forgiveness
can be gained, which is the blood? Now, my mother didn't talk that
way. But that was the meaning of what she said. And so in short
order, we were at another church. Because if she couldn't talk
about the blood, she wasn't going to bother talking at all. So
I was raised, really, I was raised on the blood. I've known about
the blood pretty much since I've known about anything. Now here in Exodus chapter 12,
and we'll read two verses beginning in verse 12. Exodus 12, verses
12 and 13, for I will pass through the land of Egypt this night,
and will smite all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man
and beast, and against all the gods of Egypt, I will execute
judgment. I am the Lord. And the blood
shall be to you for a token upon the houses where you are. And
when I see the blood, I will pass over you. And the plague
shall not be upon you to destroy you when I smite the land of
Egypt. I imagine most all of you are
familiar with the story here, the institution of Passover,
how that the Jews had been in Egypt for 400 years. They came
there as highly favored people, but there arose a Pharaoh that
had no regard for Joseph, and therefore he treated the Jews
horribly and brought them under a cruel bondage. But God had
determined to deliver them. And through the hand of Moses,
he brought a series of plagues upon Egypt. And each time, Pharaoh
would say, OK, Moses, tell God to stop that. Stop this plague,
and I'll let the people go. And God would stop the plague.
And then Pharaoh would harden his heart and say, no, you can't
go. So the Lord said to Moses, I got one more. Now, it's not
like the Lord tried one plague, and that didn't work, so he came
up with another one. He knew it was going to take 10. And
so he said, OK, there's one more thing I'm going to do. And when
I do this, he will let you go. And he said, I'm going to go
through the land of Egypt. And we read this earlier in chapter
11. He said, I'm going to go through
the land of Egypt, and I am going to kill the firstborn of every
household, and in every barn, in every stall, in every flock
out in the fields, wherever. Firstborn
of everyone and everything in the land of Egypt is gonna die. Now it's important to note that
God did not pass judgment on the Egyptians. He passed judgment
on all who were in Egypt. If he'd only passed judgment
on the Egyptians, there'd have been no need for the blood, because
the Israelites wouldn't have come under that judgment. But
you see, God says, I will make a difference between the Egyptians
and the Israelites. And why must he make a difference?
Because there wasn't any difference. You might say, well, their ancestry
was different. No, it wasn't. Their ancestry was Adam. They
came from the same source as the Egyptians. They were the
same kind of people. You know, we get the idea that
the Jews were there in Egypt faithfully worshiping God. Well,
then why did Joshua say to them, choose you this day whom you
will follow, the God your fathers worshipped on the other side
of the river, on the other side of the ocean there, there in
Egypt? Oh, there were a few faithful. There's always been a remnant
according to the election of grace. But for the most part, those
people, those Jews in Egypt were ungodly, idol-worshipping, just
like the Egyptians. And of course that was kind of
proven because when they got to the Jordan the first time,
they didn't believe God. And so they all fell dead in
the wilderness. So God is the one who made the
difference between the Egyptians and the Israelites even though
all of them were in the land of Egypt and the judgment of
God had been pronounced upon all of them. But one thing that
God did for the Jews that he didn't do for the Egyptians. The judgment was on all alike,
but he told the Jews something he didn't tell the Egyptians.
He says, you get a lamb, you kill it. You take its blood and
you put it on the doorpost and on the lintel, on the crossbar
across the top. And then you get inside that
house and you stay there. Because I'm coming through. I'm
coming through. Now let us note two important
facts. Number one, who was it that was
put in danger by the judgment? It was the firstborn in the household,
wasn't it? Who was it that put the blood on the door? Not the
firstborn. These constructions were the
heads of the household. It was dad. It was the father. who was the one who was told,
because the fathers in Jewish households acted as the priest
of that household. And so they put the blood on.
The point I want to make here is that the one who is saved
by the blood is not the one who applies the blood. And we sing
songs, and I've heard preachers say, apply the blood to the door
of your heart. You can't, and you've never been
told to. We'll find out what our relation
to the blood is, and how we're to view it, and what we're to
do about it. But the blood is not applied. by the people who
were saved by it. Now we have this scene, judgment
pronounced, lambs slain, blood on the door, people inside the
house, then a wondrous thing happens. God, the merciless avenger,
sweeps through the whole land of Egypt. He visits every household
in the land of Egypt Every barn, every stable, and in a moment,
a whale, a heart-rending, gut-wrenching whale arises up in the land of
Egypt. His household after household
finds their firstborn son dead. But where the Jews are living,
Not so much as a dog barks. Now you know how dogs are. Out
there were dogs. Anybody comes through their territory at night,
they start barking. Well, God came through their
territory and not a one of them barked. Not a one of them got
spooked. Not a one of them warned of danger. I don't know if the Israelites
were asleep. They might've been kind of fearful, but they may
have just as well been asleep, because they were safe. Now, why were they safe? What
was, God said, everybody will see that I, the Lord, make a
difference between the Egyptians and the Israelites. What was
that difference? It was the blood. That was the only thing different.
That was the only difference between Egyptians and Jews on
that night. Because they were the same kind
of people. They were sinners. Every one of them was as deserving
of wrath as the other. The only difference between the
house of wailing and the house of rejoicing was the blood. Behold the power of the blood,
that when the merciless avenger sees it, he passes over. When God, and I call him here
the merciless avenger, because apart from the blood, he's merciless.
Don't ever get the idea that God is soft on sin. He says, I will by no means clear
the guilty. And he came through Egypt that
night He passed through Egypt, but he passed over those households
on which there was blood. And it was because of what the
blood testified. The blood was saying something
to that merciless avenger as it went through Egypt. And you
know what it was saying? Here's his general message. Judgment
has already come to this house. That's really what it was saying.
That's what the blood says. Death has already passed on this
house. The firstborn's already dead, no use coming in here.
Here's the blood, here's the testimony of it, right there
on the door. Now we realize that the Passover
is one of the most prominent pictures of Christ and Him crucified. Christ, our Passover. is sacrificed
for us. So as we think of this scene,
we're standing outside these Jewish houses, and there we see
that blood, and God foreshadowed a crucifixion thousands of years
before the first one was ever done. With that blood on the
sides of the door, remember our Lord's hands were nailed, and
they had the crown of thorns, there's blood from his head,
from his hands, got it right there on the door. Now the Jews
didn't understand that yet, that was later to be shown, but God
was given a foreshadowing of Christ and Him crucified. So
if we make this image of the Jewish households in Passover,
what we're actually doing or what we need to do is see that
what we are observing is our Lord Jesus Christ pouring out
His soul unto death, shedding His blood. And the life
of the soul is in the blood. The life is in the blood. And
so that means giving his life. Okay, that blood on the night
of Passover, that blood of a sheep, a lamb, had a testimony in its
day. And the blood of Christ, as he
hung upon that cross, it was a testimony. He said, it is finished. And he gave up his spirit. And there is that body hanging
there, dead. Not swooned, dead. And there's blood. Roman crucifixion, horrible,
horrible sight. What's that blood say? What's
its testimony? It testifies to us that God is
not the softy of modern Christianity. He is not that grandfatherly
sort who is just too enamored of his grandchildren ever to
find fault with them or punish them or anything like that. My
grandchildren, they're sweet to me. Around me, they get away
with a lot more than their parents did. when there were kids in
the house. And any of you with grandkids,
you know how that goes. Some of you know that your grandchildren,
they can't do anything wrong, you know, and you just let everything
go. People think God's like that. No, he's not. If you want to preach up a softy
God, don't preach it in Egypt. If you want to preach up a softy
God, don't preach it in Noah's day. He is not soft on sin. He is absolutely ruthless and
merciless in the punishment of sin. And if you come before Him
in your sins, it won't matter what else you have. He will destroy
you with everlasting wrath. That's what the blood testifies. You know, in our day when we're
supposed to tolerate and accept and even approve of everything,
And they even try to act like that's what God's doing. How
can you be a Christian and find fault with this or that, you
know? Well, maybe because God finds fault with it. You say,
yes, but God's forgiving. He's just going to let it slide.
Then what was Calvary about? Don't talk to our Lord Jesus
Christ about a softy God. He dealt with God. I know he
is God. And that can be confusing in
our minds how to put that all together. But he died as a man. covered in sins charged to him,
but worse than this, he was covered in sins before the Lord. And the Lord Jesus Christ at
that time had no hope in the fact that the judge of all the
earth would go easy on him. That's why he sweat, as it were,
great drops of blood in Gethsemane, because he knew what was coming.
He knew God. did not take sin lightly, nor
deal with sinners, deal with the guilty mercifully. That's
what the blood says. If God's not hard on sin, then
he needs to apologize to his son for what he did to him. The
blood tells us about God as the merciless avenger who will by
no means clear the guilty. Here's another thing that blood
tells us about God. He is unimaginably gracious. You say, wait a minute, you just
said he's the merciless avenger. How can you now turn around and
say the blood testifies that he's unimaginably gracious? Whose
blood is that? Now if it's our blood, then all
we could say, merciless avenger. Because that's all that the shedding
of our blood could ever testify about God's justice. That's why it is said that the
blood of Christ speaks better things than the blood of Abel. The blood of Abel cried for vengeance.
The blood of Christ is the blood of God's Son. And while it is
a demonstration of the severe wrath of God, It is also a commendation
of His love, because what God required, God provided, and what
God provided, God accepted. See, this is why we don't do
that pattern, and I'm not trying to find great fault with this.
I understand what people mean by it, but they say, well, we
go out and preach the law until people, you know, become convicted
of their sin, then we preach the grace of God. No, we preach
the cross because the cross gives both messages. The righteousness
and merciless vengeance of God against sin and the unimaginable
grace that comes to us through Jesus Christ. And so you get
both messages at once. But the very same message that
cuts your own legs out from under you and deprives you of any hope
in yourself gives you infinite hope in Jesus Christ. It's the blood. The blood tells us something
else about God. What great respect he has for his son. When he sees the blood of his
son, he accepts that in payment of sin and puts his sword away. All the religion of the thousands
of years of human history could never get God to put his sword
away. But the blood of Jesus Christ,
God's son, and the avenger says, I am avenged, and puts his sword
away. One of the reasons that I believe
that doctrine that's unfortunately called limited atonement, but
one reason I believe it is, God has more regard for his son than
to let one for whom his blood was shed perish. The blood tells us something
about the people inside the houses that night, and the blood of
Christ tells us something about us. We are wicked. If they were righteous, God would
have said, when I see your goodness, I will pass over you. Modern Christianity, which wants
to present us as being fairly good people, maybe with some
flaws. And I said, well, then what was that cross about? You measure the seriousness of
a disease by the power of the medicine necessary to cure it. Look what it took to save us. We must have been in a mess.
If it takes the slaughter And I think that's a good word, because
exactly what happened. God slaughtered his son. That's what it took to save us.
Let's be done talking about how good we are. People like to, of course, dote
on their little children. And I remember seeing a bumper
sticker or a poster or something, you know, and it shows this little
boy looking a little bit defiant. And he says, I must be good,
because God don't make no junk. I'm sorry. I love my grandchildren,
but I know who their grandfather is, and I know what got passed
on to them through me. And nothing less than the blood
of Jesus Christ can save their souls, because they're every
bit as wicked as their parents and their grandparents right
on back to Adam. That's what the blood tells us.
We're desperate sinners. Secondly, the blood tells us
something about the Lord Jesus Christ. What manner of man is he that
by the shedding of his blood, the blood of one man shed one
time that a multitude which no man can number of men and women
are redeemed and washed clean and justified and shall be presented
faultless before God's throne with joy? What kind of man must
he be? I'm impressed that the Lord could
do the miracles he did. Pretty impressive that he could
call four days dead Lazarus out of the grave. That's nothing compared to what
he did on Calvary. There never has been a work of
such great power, such goodness, such everything glorious you
can think of as the work of Jesus Christ as he gave himself as
a ransom for many. What manner of man is he? I guess
we'll spend eternity finding out. I think one reason people don't
have an appreciation for Christ and his glory is they have no
appreciation for their own sinfulness and what it took to save them. So the blood has a testimony.
God is righteous and just and will by no means clear the guilty,
but he is unimaginably gracious by providing that which his justice
requires. It tells us something about ourselves.
We are horribly, horribly wicked. And it tells us something about
Christ. What a glorious person he is. That by the offering of himself
once for all, he saved a multitude of people like you and me. And the exhortation then to us
is, to join with those in glory who say, worthy art thou, for
thou hast redeemed us by thy blood out of every kindred, tongue,
tribe, and nation, and made us priests unto our God. It's the blood, brethren. Don't
ever let the sophisticated world talk you out of the blood of
Christ. as though that's the remnants
of some barbaric, pre-civilized religion. That's the religion
of God. Well, the Lord had his blessing.