Many, many years ago, I used
to carry a hardback, wide-margin Bible. And a friend of mine,
Brother Ron Lumberg, took that Bible and covered it in leather. He tells me the old books were
a bit, and he put a sign on it. It had little ridges on the back
of it that looked like an old, old book. Those old books used
to be made uniquely. They were often, the very best
of them, hand-sewn. They weren't just glued together,
they were hand-sewn. If you take one of your hymn
books, please don't do it. I see a lot of folks take a new
book, first thing they do is they open it up, bend it backwards, you're
going to break the sign because it's just glued together. Not
a hand-sewn book. The hand-sewn book has threads
running through it, all the way through it, that bind it together
and make it strong. There's a company up in Monterey,
Kentucky, Larkspur Press, who still does it. The books are
real expensive, but they're really nice, really nice. And they make
them just this way. They're hand-sewn, and then they
put glue on the back of them, glue the boards to them, but
the books are sewn together. This book, the Word of God, is
sewn together and made strong by a scarlet cord like the cord
that Rahab hung from her window. That scarlet cord being the precious
blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. The blood of Christ running through
every page. binds these 66 books together. Everything written on the pages
of these 66 books in Holy Scripture is about the precious blood of
the Lord Jesus Christ. As God the Holy Ghost will enable
me, I want to talk to you for just a little bit about the blood. If you can remember three words,
you can remember my Alpine. The blood. That blood is spilt. That blood is sprinkled. That blood is saint. Spilt, sprinkled,
saint. Let's look at Exodus chapter
12 and verse 13. The Lord God says, And the blood
shall be to you for a token, a sign, a banner, an emblem,
a token upon the houses where ye 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. The scriptures
speak to us constantly about the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is written in the books of
the law, the life of the flesh is in the blood. God said to
Moses, the blood shall be to you for a token. He said, when
I see the blood, I will pass over you. When the high priest
went into the Holy of Holies on the Day of Atonement, he went
in with blood. No man was allowed to go into
that Holy of Holies without blood. The specific God-ordained blood
of the Lamb. The Lamb God-ordained on the
day God-ordained, sacrificed in the way God-ordained. when
our Lord Jesus instituted the Lord's Supper we celebrate here
every Sunday evening. He took the cup of wine and held
it before his disciples and said, this is the blood of the New
Testament shed for many for the remission of sins. In Hebrews
chapter 9, we're told without the shedding of blood is no remission. That makes the blood, the precious
blood of Christ, a matter of infinitely immense importance. These days, it's very common
for preachers, churches, theologians, and hymn writers to say as little
as possible about the blood. I haven't investigated it for
myself, but some years ago, the United Methodist Church got together
and decided to redo their hymnal, and they took every word of blood
out of the hymnal, so that they were all altered not to offend,
because blood seems crude, unsophisticated, uneducated. The blood of Christ
is not to be talked about. The sacrifice of blood is not
to be preached. Blood atonement is not to be
declared. But it is still true, without
shedding of blood is no remission. Now let me tell you how important
this is. The whole of God's revelation of himself, the whole of the
gospel, The whole of salvation is wrapped up in the blood, the
precious, sin-atoning blood of God's own Son, the Lord Jesus
Christ. Without the shedding of blood,
there is no gospel. Without the shedding of blood,
there is no salvation. Without the shedding of blood,
there is no knowledge of God. Without the shedding of blood,
this book is meaningless. That declares this subject to
be one of infinitely immense importance. Neither by the blood
of goats and calves, but by his own blood, our Lord Jesus entered
in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption
for us. You know, Peter tells us, you
who are born of God, you who are taught of God, everyone born
of God, everyone taught of God, 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.
What can wash away my sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
What can make me whole again? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. Oh, precious is the flow that
makes me white as snow. No other fount I know, nothing
but the blood of Jesus. And I can say with calvary, ere
since by faith I saw the stream, Christ flowing won't supply. Redeeming love has been my thing
and shall be till I die. When David and Celeste came in
this morning, he said they'd been listening to a couple of
messages I preached in 1997. I didn't know what to work first,
they told me later, but I said, nothing has changed, has it?
Nothing has changed. And God help him, nothing's going
to change. This is the message I've been preaching since I was
17 years old. I hope I can preach it a little
clearer, maybe a little better now than then. But the message
hasn't changed, not since I was 17 years old. The shedding of
the blood of Christ, that precious blood, was and is absolutely
essential to the saving of our souls. Let us ever cherish the
blood as that which is precious above all things. Now here is
the greatest promise that man ever heard from God. The greatest
promise any man on this earth can ever realize. The Lord God
said 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. Now what is God saying
here? He's saying when I deal in judgment
with the Egyptians, I'll deal in mercy with you. That's what
he's saying. When I deal in judgment with
the world's sin, When I come in wrath and judgment and condemnation
upon this world, I'll cover you with my grace. When I come to
execute wrath for sin, I'm going to extend to you my mercy. When I see the blood, I'll pass
over you. When this promise was given,
an angry God was walking through the streets at midnight in Egypt. with his glittering sharp sword
in his hand, slaughtering on the right hand and on the left,
the joy of every house, the pride of every home, the delight of
every family, the firstborn in every house on this side and
on that. God slew that night in Egypt. God came in judgment. God in
wrath and condemnation fell upon the Egyptians to destroy them. Will he smite all? Will everyone
die? Will he condemn all? Will he
not have mercy upon any? Indeed, he will. God says, when
I see the blood, I will pass over you. Oh, blessed be his
name. In wrath, God remembers mercy. God in judgment walks through
the streets of Egypt. God in wrath deals with sin.
And God deals with man's rebellion. But he speaks to a few among
many, to a nation within the nation. And he says to those
who hear his voice, when I see the blood, I'll pass over you. God's people then are safe. All
of God's people are safe. Always safe. Always secure. Saved by God's grace. Saved by
the blood and being saved. Always safe. There is no judgment
that can come upon them. Why? Why is it that God's people
are safe? Always safe. Let me give you
three or four reasons. We're safe. because God's people
are in his heart. He says concerning these, to
whom he speaks by his word, when I see the blood, I will pass
over you and the plague will not come near you to destroy
you. There won't be any plague on
you. No judgment upon you because I have loved you with an everlasting
love. Our names are inscribed upon
his breast and can never be taken away. The Lord God has us in
his heart from everlasting. It is in his heart to protect
us. Not only are we in his heart, God's people are safe because
they're in his hand, in the hand of omnipotence. Our Lord Jesus
said, I know my sheep. I call them by name. I give them
eternal life. And no man is able to pluck them
out of my hand. My father which gave them to
me is greater than all. And no man is able to pluck them
out of my father's hand. They're in his hand. In his hand. And my brother,
a friend, a gypsy guy from Arizona, says to me regularly, he writes
and he says, in his grip. Oh, what a blessed place to be
in the grip of omnipotent mercy, love, and grace. And God's people
are safe because we're in his covenant. He said, I will make
a covenant with you and write my law in your hearts and in
your minds and your sins and iniquities will I remember no
more. In his heart, in his hand, in
his covenant. God made for us and made with
us in a representative the Lord Jesus Christ his son before the
world began a covenant of pure free grace and pledged himself
to be our God and us to be his people. All to whom God speaks
and says, when I see the blood, I will pass over you. He passes
over them because they are safe in the covenant of His grace.
This is all my salvation and all my desire. That's that with
which David comforted his soul when he lay dying long, long
ago. There's a fourth thing. God's
people are safe because we're in his son. There is therefore
now no condemnation, no judgment, no judgment of any kind ever
to them that are in Christ Jesus. Oh, would to God we could all
get hold of this and believe it. God never deals with his
people in judgment. Charlie, he dealt with our sins
one time, and that was at Calvary in his son. Please don't ever think, and
certainly don't say it to me. I would hate to have to correct
you right to your face about it. Please don't ever think or
say it to anyone, well, My chickens have come home to roost. God's
dealing with me because of all my past sin. Not a few years. Not a few years. This is God's
promise. When I see the blood, I will
pass over you. We hear preachers read about
things they write, and they tell folks, because preachers in churches
like to keep you under their thumb and keep you under control.
They want to control your lives, and they want to rule your lives
and keep you scared. They say, now, you got to do
this or do that. If you do that, the other don't
do this or that, God will get you. Your boy will get sick. God'll kill your wife. God'll
give you a disease. What kind of God are you talking
about? Well, God's the Egyptians worshipped. What kind of God
are you talking about? Our God says, when I see the
blood, I'll pass over you. This is what I want you to see.
God's people are safe. So that when God Almighty comes
in judgment, in providential judgment upon any nation, in
providential judgment upon any house, in providential judgment
upon any family, in providential judgment upon any age. When God
comes in judgment, even in the final judgment of the last day,
when the elements are on fire and the earth melts with a fervent
heat, God's elect are safe because God has promised 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."
Now, let's look at these three aspects of the message. First,
the blood spilled. This is the key. The blood spilt
is our salvation and our safety. God's people are safe because
of the blood, only because we're under the blood. Our salvation,
our safety, our security is in the blood, only in the precious
blood of Christ spilled by the hand of the divine justice at
Calvary. The blood of the lamb had to
be violently spilt or we could never have been saved. In verses
3 through 6 of Exodus 12, the Lord God said, you go get a lamb. You get a male of the first kid. And you shut it up for four days
and watch it. Be sure there's no spot of livids
in it. And then you slaughter that lamb. You kill it. You kill
it. And you take the blood and sprinkle
it on the two side posts of the house and on the door post overhead
over the lintel and get inside the house and roast that lamb. and eat it with your staff in
your hand and your shoes on your feet and your coats on your back.
You're going out of Egypt tonight. Take the lamb and when judgment
comes, when I see the blood, I will pass over you. Without
question, the most wondrous of all God's works is the work of
redemption. When we attempt to contemplate
and find some understanding of God's marvelous work of redemption,
we're utterly overwhelmed. It's beyond reach. I think of
the Son of God, assuming our nature, coming into this world,
taking on himself our flesh, becoming one of us. and comes
here not as a mighty rich noble fellow, but as a servant and
stoops all his life long to be a servant and live the life of
constant sorrow, poverty, pain. slander, being abused and despised
by men, constantly opposed everywhere he went, hated by the religious
world and hated by his own family, confusing men all around him,
despising him. And we see him when he goes to
Mount Calvary and bears the horrible shame of our sin. When he who knew no sin was made
sin for us, and bore the painful, shameful, ignominious death of
the cross, being forsaken by His own Father, suffering all
the fury of God's wrath as the Lamb of God, suffering all the
fury of God's light wrath as that one that must be sacrificed,
and then cries, it is finished. I stand at the foot of the cross
in utter In utter awe. Men frequently
wanted to debate with me about various things, and when I was
younger, and I, God forgive me, less overwhelmed. Less utterly awed by sacrifice. I'd argue with them, but the
arguments are futile, and the arguments are vain and meaningless. I'm utterly awed by what I see
when I stand at the foot of the cross. But a question constantly
rises, a question that it must be answered by any sane man who
thinks about these things. Why? Why did the holy, just,
righteous, good God pour out such fury upon his own darling
son, the Lord Jesus Christ? Why? Why did God make his son
suffered such horrid, horrid things. Why did the Son of God
endure such wrath, such shame, such ignominy, that He has made
sin for us, forsaken of the Father, abandoned by God, and slaughtered
by the sword of God's justice. Why? Well, because He loved us
so much. That woman knows I love her,
and I haven't died for her. Surely there must be some other
reason. Surely there must be another reason. There is another. Because God Almighty cannot and
will not save a sinner without satisfaction. Justice must be
satisfied. Justice must be satisfied. The Lord God says, come here. Gather around me, let me tell
you something. I am a just God and a Savior. Without the shedding
of blood is no remission. In order for God to save his
people, the only thing that could satisfy his justice was the blood
of his own darling son. So the blood must be spilt. spilt violently under the fury
of God's holy wrath and justice. God dealing with his son in anger,
in wrath, in justice, because his son was made sin for us. If that doesn't overwhelm you,
I don't have any idea what might. If that doesn't conquer you,
I don't have any idea what might. If that doesn't subdue your heart,
I have no idea what might. If that doesn't constrain you
to beg of God for grace, to give yourself utterly to Him, I have
no idea what might. The blood must be spilt. Second, the blood spilt must
be sprinkled. The Lord said in verse 7, They
shall take of the blood and strike it on the two side post and on
the upper door post of the houses wherein they shall eat it. Hawker put it well. He said an
unapplied sacrifice is no sacrifice. An unapplied redemption is no
redemption. An unapplied atonement is no
atonement. The blood must be applied. It must be sprinkled. The Lord
God said to the children of Israel, you take the blood and you smear
it on this door post and you smear it on that door post. Because
there's no entrance into the house of God, no entrance into
heaven, no entrance into the kingdom of God, but by the blood. And you smear some of that blood
on the lintel overhead. Because we must have a mediator. One between us and God. One who
is a go-between. One who is equal to God. And
one of us, a mediator, who can take hold of God and take hold
of man and bring the two together. But no blood on the threshold. No blood down here, because the
blood of Christ must never be looked upon as a common, ordinary
thing to be trampled underfoot. The blood must be applied to
the doorpost and the lintel. And so our Lord Jesus here gives
us a picture of the sprinkling of his precious blood himself. The blood of Christ, our Savior,
sprinkled. overhead in heaven. The Lord
God Almighty has accepted the sacrifice that Christ made when
he, with his own blood, entered once into the holy place, having
obtained eternal redemption for us. You remember reading in the
ninth chapter of Hebrews that almost all things were sprinkled
with blood. The mercy seat, the altar, the
tabernacle, everything, sprinkled with blood. Sprinkled with blood.
Why? Because it's the blood that makes atonement. It's the blood
that makes atonement. That mercy seat, covering the
law of God, sprinkled with blood. And the picture, being of God,
almighty, accepting the sacrifice, as he looks on the blood, the
Shekinah glory fills the house of God, fills the holy place. God says, I'll take that! That's
acceptable. I receive that. And with his
own blood, the Lord Jesus Christ entered into the holy place,
having obtained eternal redemption for us. And then God, the Holy
Spirit, comes in regeneration. And he sprinkles the blood on
the conscience of the sinner. And takes away guilt. He takes away guilt. Not long after we moved to Danville,
I had given up the road here and I had gone somewhere in Beating.
I forgot where I had gone. But I was coming back on Lexington
Avenue and there was a police officer. sitting in the Camberlite
Church parking lot up there. It's a good place for a police
officer to sit. And he was sitting there just beyond the speed limit
sign that dropped from 45 to 35. Guess what? I went by it, didn't even realize
it. I was in 35 mile an hour zone,
David. I didn't even put on my brakes. I didn't realize I'd
done anything. And I'm talking about before
I got to Miller's Road, he had me pulled over. And you know
what he did? He enforced the law. He wrote
me a ticket. He said, you realize you're speeding?
I said, no, that doesn't matter. I was speeding. Well, you were
speeding. The sign's right there. I was
still speeding. And I had to pay a fine. And
I paid the fine. And I've driven by that Camberlite
Church parking lot hundreds of times since. And many times I've
seen that same police officer sitting there. He's retired now.
I've seen him sitting there many, many times. And I never paid
any attention, never put on my brakes, because I make certain
by the time I get to the 35 mile an hour zone, I'm doing 35 or
less. I said, aren't you afraid of
me? No. No. I don't owe the law anything. I have paid for every crime,
every offense the law of man has ever found me guilty of.
And I owe the law nothing. Nothing. Now hear me. Oh my soul,
God help you to hear me. I owe God's law nothing. I read the 20th chapter of Exodus
and never tremble. I never tremble, never tremble. Thou shalt love the Lord thy
God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy mind,
with all thy being, and I never tremble. Thou shalt love thy
neighbor as thyself. And I never tremble, never tremble
at all, because Christ has satisfied all the demands of law and justice
for me. And God Almighty, giving me faith
in Christ, sprinkles the blood on this poor man's conscience.
And it says to me, as it said to Enoch, you please God. You please God. The blood must
be sprinkled. I've told you many times about
going to see Brother Harold Martin. He was one of the deacons to
look out for when they called him his pastor. He was a good deacon. Good deacon.
The last words he spoke, I went out to see him out in Washington,
flew out there and spent the day with him. And the last words
he spoke before he taking the final consciousness. He said,
Preacher, it's good to come here and know
that everything is under the blood. Everything is under the
blood. Under the blood of Jesus, safe
in the shepherd's fold. Under the blood of Jesus, safe
while the ages roll. Safe, though the world may crumble. Safe, though the years grow dim,
though the stars grow dim. Under the blood of Jesus, I am
secure in Him. It's the blood of Christ that
makes it so much. God said, when I see the blood,
I will pass over you. Now, there's one more thing.
This blood that was spilt, this blood sprinkled in heaven, accepted
by God, and sprinkled in our hearts and consciences, is blood
seen. Blood seen. Now, don't miss the
picture. Mark, if you were to go up there
in that hallway, back under, and shut that door, what do you
reckon you could see inside here? Not a thing. Not a thing. The safety, the security, the
salvation of the Israelites did not in any way depend on them
seeing the blood. They couldn't see it. They couldn't
see it. They were behind the door. They
couldn't see it. Now, we believe on the Son of
God. We receive the benefits of redemption. We receive the benefits of atonement.
But our seeing the blood is not our salvation. Our seeing the
blood is not our redemption. Our seeing the blood is not our
acceptance. It is God seeing the blood. He said, when I see the blood,
I'll pass over you. And the Lord God Almighty saw
the blood before ever the world was. For Christ is the Lamb of
God, slain from the foundation of the world. And because God's
eye has always been on the blood, it was not possible that any
of God's people should perish in time. His eye was on Christ. the blood sacrifice, and we were
accepted, justified, reconciled to God, sanctified in the blood
of Jesus Christ, one with Him, the Lamb slain from the foundation
of the world. And the Lord God saw the blood
when it was spilled at Calvary, on Calvary's hill, when the Lord
Jesus Christ poured out His life's blood unto death. He saw the
blood. The blood of one who was chosen
of God as his lamb. The blood of one who is holy,
harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners. But now not the
blood of an animal. Oh, no. These blood sacrifices
in the Old Testament, that's the blood of an animal. That
couldn't take away sin. Those sacrifices that God required
under the law could never take away sin, let alone your puny
sacrifices. Oh, no. It took the blood of
a man who is God to put away sin. Jesus Christ is God who
purchased the church with his own blood. Because he is the
God-man, his blood is of infinite merit, of infinite value, of
infinite efficacy. It is the blood that is effectual. Effectual. That's a big, big
word. I recall years and years ago,
sitting by the campfire, just outside of Hinton, West Virginia,
and my sisters had come up to join us for camp that year. And
we were peeling potatoes, getting ready, helping the ladies get
things ready in the kitchen. And I was trying to talk to my
sisters, and the one who is now dying of cancer, I use the term
effectual. And she said, what does that
mean? And I was so glad she asked. I hope you're asking, what does
that mean? That means it gets the job done. It gets the job done. Every sinner
for whom Christ died is redeemed by his blood. Every man woman
and child in the land of Egypt that night, whose house had blood
sprinkled on the doorpost and lentil, walked out of Egypt across
the Red Sea, being redeemed by the blood of the Lamb. Jesus
Christ died for a people who must and shall be with Him in
glory. Who are they? Everyone who needs
to sacrifice. Everyone who believes on Him. And He, being the Lamb of God,
is able to save to the uttermost all them that come to God by
Him. The one condition of redemption,
the one condition of salvation is this. When I see the blood,
When I see the blood, I will pass over you. And the Lord God
says the blood shall be to you for a token, a sign, a reminder,
a banner, a token to tell you something. 47 years old. I'd be 48 in just a little while. And the lady there gave me this
ring. And it's a token. You're married. Get your mind. One time years
ago, I'd gone through one of those fits when everybody wanted
me to get skinny. I'd lost a little weight. And
I was almost as skinny as I am now. And I was swimming. And
I came up out of the pool without my ring. And the water was about
14 feet deep. You can't imagine how many times
I had to dive down 14 feet to get that ring. And I kept diving
to look at it, because that ring's important. To me and to her,
that's a token. That's a token. You, uh, you
fellas who are courting, you'd be smart to look and see if there's
a ring on that girl's finger before you ask her out. That's
a token. That's a token. The blood is
a token. A token of redemption. I belong
to God. What does that mean? It's a token
of infinite love. God said, I've loved you in everlasting
love. See here, I'll show you. I gave
my son to be a propitiation to your sins. It is a token of covenant
blessedness. God gave me all the blessings
of his grace in Christ before the world was. How do you know? It is a token. The blood shall be to you for
a token. It is a token of perfect satisfaction. How do you know God's satisfied?
How do you know God's accepted you, accepted everything about
Christ? Because his blood, this blood
he gave for a token, he says it is to me a sweet smelling
savor. A sweet smelling savor. Friday night, when we got home
from the office, got home late, Shelby started working around
in the kitchen. You know what that woman did? She fixed me
some fried chicken, the old-fashioned way, in that cast iron skillet. Oh, my, what a smell. It smells
wonderful. Smells a lot better than spinach
cooking. Smells a lot better. It's a sweet smelling savor. The blood of Christ is to God
in all his being. That which satiates his being. The blood is a token. A token
of complete forgiveness. God by the blood has blotted
out all our transgressions. How do you know God will not
charge you with sin? The blood. The blood should be
your first token. The blood is a token of free
access. The veil is ready too. From top
to bottom. And God says sinners come and
welcome. Come on in. If you want to come in, you can.
If you want to, you can. Come on in! Sinners are welcome! Because the blood's exception
is a token. A blessed, perfect, constant,
unending, everlasting safety. The other night, back in the
office, Brother Rex reminded me of a story Brother Mahan used
to tell, and I've seen it portrayed myself. Shelby and I go home
in the evenings and try to watch a little something to relax,
something recorded on television, and nothing new is fit to watch,
so we don't watch anything new, except the news, and that's not
fit to watch either. But we about always watch Gunsmoke or Widenframe. And wagon trains, they'd take
those folks. You'd just start in St. Joe,
Missouri, going to Sacramento, California. I guess that's the
only path Seth Adams knew. But you'd take the wagon trains.
And sometimes, they'd come up on a prairie fire. That's a frightening
sight. I've driven through somebody
in Texas, so home is a frightening sight. They don't drive into
the smoke. And if you ever get close, you'll know why. How are
they going to protect themselves? How are they going to protect
themselves? They'd go back a ways and set a fire and leave it blowing
behind them and let it burn off. And then they'd take the wagons
and the cattle and the people and set them all up on that burnt
ground. And they'd stay there until that
fire had gone completely out. And they were perfectly safe.
How come? Because they were standing on
burnt ground. And once it's burned, there's
nothing to be burnt. Oh, thank God in Christ, we stand
on burnt ground. And in payment, God cannot trust
a man. First, my bleeding shirt, his
head, and then again, mine. Come to Christ. and stand forever before God
on burnt ground. And God says, the blood shall
be you for a token. And when I see the blood, I'll
pass over you. Let the plague come not near
you to destroy you, when I smite the Egyptians. Amen.