Kill it. Kill it. Kill it. That's the title of
my message. Kill it. Kill it. Kill it. And the reason why I've
chosen that for the title, I trust will become obvious as I proceed. Many look upon the doctrine of
the blood atonement as a monstrous thing. and denounce it as an
outdated, even barbaric and violent doctrine. The infamous liberal,
and I chose my words deliberately, the infamous liberal, Harry Emerson
Fosdick, in a sermon he preached long before most of us were born,
made this declaration. He said that the doctrine of
special atonement, by which the blood of Christ shed in a substitutionary
death placates an alienated deity, making it possible for sinners
to be received by God, is a pre-civilized barbarity. In 1989, the Methodist Hymnal
was reprinted. The editors of the 1989 reprint
decided to remove all references to the blood of Christ and blood
atonement. Like Fosdick and those editors,
many today who claim to speak for God, look upon the gospel
doctrine of substitution, redemption by blood atonement, as a slaughterhouse
doctrine. And they denounce our most holy
faith as slaughterhouse religion. Even worse, many. The vast majority of those who
talk about the death of Christ, talk about the cross and speak
often of Christ going to the cross and would stand for what's
called the fundamentals of the faith. The vast majority of those
men treat the religion of the gospel as a barbaric slaughterhouse
religion. For they make the death of Christ
little more than a moral example, an inspiring story. They make
the sacrifice of our Lord to be no more than a show of great,
great love on God's part. They deny the necessity of the
atonement. They deny the efficacy of the
atonement. They deny the everlasting punishment
of sin upon the wicked. And they deny real penal substitution. But if you could get a picture
of Jews in the Old Testament going to either the tabernacle
or the temple on any given day, it wouldn't have to be one of
their high holy days, but on any given day, as you approach
the place of worship, you would know above all else, that place
of worship was marked by blood. Everything as you approach the
tabernacle, everything as you approach the temple, you first
come to see that huge altar and you've got to be stunned by the
fact that everything there is marked by blood. For without
the shedding of blood is no remission. Everything was marked by blood
because God requires blood. God requires blood. That means God requires death. God demands death as the penalty
of sin. There is no alternative. The
soul that sinneth, it must die. There's no alternative. In the
first chapter of the book of Leviticus, God said concerning
those sacrifices brought to him to make atonement, kill it, kill
it, kill it. And that's exactly what God said
concerning his dear son, the Lord Jesus Christ, our substitute,
when he came to fulfill the picture given in the sacrifice. God said
when his son was made sin for us, kill him, kill him. Kill him, no mercy, no grace,
nothing's to be spared. Awake, O sword, against the man
that is my fellow. Smite and slay the shepherd,
the Lord of hosts declares. It is a sad fact, but a fact
nonetheless, that far too many preachers are like Nero, the
insane Roman conqueror. While Rome was burning and multitudes
perishing, Nero stood on the roof of his palace fiddling. That's a pretty good picture
of what goes on in churches everywhere in this country and all over
the world. Many a preacher stands in his
pulpit Sunday after Sunday, week after week, month after month,
year after year, playing his fiddle while the people perish
for lack of knowledge. The preachers trifle with the
souls of men when they ought to be seeking the salvation of
their immortal souls. They spend their time and their
labor upon matters of no importance, matters of just utter insignificance. As I was preparing this message,
I thought just after I finished everything, came back and jotted
these things down. Just subjects I've read, sometimes I've been
forced to endure without, let's call some kind of real commotion
by not staying, listening to preachers preach on subjects
like this. Church order, church discipline, church government,
church history. Men spend months and months and
months talking about church history. One preacher some years ago spent the whole of a year preaching
to folks about Pilgrim's Progress. You can read it in a couple of
days. They spend a whole year preaching about the Pilgrim's
Progress. They preach prophetic schemes and systems. They preach
about discipleship, study church creeds and study cults, studying
Christian economics and Christian culture and Christian art. They
talk about dating, they talk about marriage, they talk about
everything under the sun trifling with men. trifling with men,
and neglect the weighty matter, the business of preaching the
gospel. Some years ago I told somebody,
just Sunday, Faith had to go out of town to a practicum, had
to be gone for about a month, and I gave her a reference to
a church and I said, Go down there, you'll probably be all
right. I knew it was a legalistic place, but they claimed to believe
grace. And I said, just don't tell them
your name. If you tell them you're my daughter, they're going to
lay in on you. So just don't tell them who you are. And so
she went on Sunday morning. She called me and I said, well,
how'd it go? She said, well, it's sort of like being in a
class in high school on sex education. I said, well, drive on over to
Madisonville the rest of the time, you'll be all right. And
nobody go with her, but it's a long ways from where she was
and it's so sad, so very sad. I stand before you as God's ambassador. I'm getting ready to leave again
to go preach the gospel in another country. And I had the realization
of my awesome responsibility. It constrains me always to stick
to vital issues. I hope you'll hear me. Vital
issues are issues of the gospel. Issues of life and death and
judgment and eternity. Issues of everlasting salvation
and everlasting damnation. There are good many things I
don't know and don't pretend to know. I don't have answers
to all the questions men have. In fact, I've just about quit
raising the questions for my own self. But there are certain
self-evident truths that lay heavy on my heart all the time,
and I'm thankful they do. I've had young preachers over
the years ask me, do you ever get over the sense of fear and
nervousness when you're preaching? And I tell them all the time,
the day I do, that's the day I'll quit. I pray that God will
cause these things to lay heavy on my heart every time I prepare
to preach or stand to preach. I know how God saves sinners. I know that God Almighty saves
sinners by free grace alone, through God-given faith alone,
by the merits and efficacy of Christ's shed blood. That's how
God saves sinners. And I know that every one of
you, and me included, will soon stand before God in judgment. You're gonna meet God soon. And I know that if God the Holy
Spirit is pleased to speak through me, what I have to say to you
in the next few minutes will have some permanent, lasting,
eternal effect upon your soul. Both this preacher and you who
hear me will have to give an account one day of that which
you now hear. So you'd be wise to hear what
I have to say. That which I preach to you is
what I've experienced, what I believe, what I know to be true, what
I know is vital. I try my best to tell preachers,
especially young men that I might influence, Don't bring your studies
to the pulpit. Don't come to the pulpit to study
things out. That's not the reason we're here.
Don't come to offer an opinion about something. Come with a
message from God and declare what you know. Nothing but what
you know. And if you declare only what
God's taught you by His Spirit, through His Word, in your own
experience of His grace, you can never be gainsayed in what
you preach. I speak without fear of error
or hesitation when I tell you that the death of Jesus Christ,
God's darling Son upon the cursed tree, was an absolute necessity. It was absolutely essential if
God would save sinners. Now God doesn't have to save.
God saves because he chooses to save. God saves because he
purposed to save. But having purposed the salvation
of his elect, God could not save his people but by the sacrifice
of his own dear son at Calvary. The sacrifice must be slain.
It is only through the blood shed at Calvary for human guilt
that I can preach this day among men the remission of sins. Brother Lindsey just read to
us about it in the book of Acts. Now because of this sacrifice,
because Jesus Christ came into this world and by the sacrifice
of himself made atonement for sin, now we proclaim to men everywhere
the remission of sins by the blood of God's darling son. What
can wash away my sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. Now let's read the first chapter
of the Gospel of Leviticus together again. And see how God the Holy
Ghost pictures this necessity of blood atonement by the Lamb
of God. Leviticus chapter one, verse
one. And the Lord called unto Moses, and spake unto him out
of the tabernacle of the congregation, saying, Speak unto the children
of Israel, and say unto them, If any man of you bring an offering
unto the Lord, ye shall bring your offering of the cattle,
even of the herd and of the flock. If his offering be a burnt sacrifice
of the herd, let him offer a mayo without blemish. He shall offer
it of his own voluntary will at the door of the tabernacle
of the congregation before the Lord. Now look at verse four.
This is a picture of faith in Christ. And he shall put his
hand upon the head of the burnt offering, and it shall be accepted
for him to make atonement for him. Here is a man coming to
God with a sin offering, the offering that God required him
to bring. He puts his hand on the same
head on which the Lord God in his priest laid his hands symbolically,
agreeing to all that God has done. God and the believing sinner
meet in the same place. God said when he put the mercy
seat on the Ark of the Covenant in the Holy of Holies, he said,
I'll meet you on the mercy seat. Christ is that mercy seat. God
and sinners meet together at the same place in the person
of Jesus Christ, his son. Both God and the sinner are satisfied
by the same sacrifice. That which satisfies the righteousness,
justice, and truth of God satisfies the conscience of the believing
sinner. The words, he shall put his hand
upon the head, would really be better translated more strongly.
He shall lean his hand upon the head. That word is translated
just that way in Psalm 87 when David said, thy wrath lieth hard,
it leaneth hard upon me. Believing sinners lean the weight
of their souls on Jesus Christ the Lord. Believing sinners lean
themselves, the entirety of their beings, upon the sacrifice upon
which God Almighty leaned his wrath. Once the sinner, in this
ceremony, in this symbolism, had laid his sins upon the head
of the sacrifice, he stepped aside, leaving his sins on the
victim. I put them right there. They're
on the head of that bull. They're right there on the head
of that goat. They're right there on the head
of that lamb. I'm going home. He laid them
there and walked away. Walked away, leaving his sins
upon the appointed victim. He had done what God required
him to do. Now he goes home rejoicing. saying to himself, I put my hand
upon the head of God's sacrifice. It shall be accepted for me to
make atonement for me. Blessed, blessed, blessed is
the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin. But there's more,
much more than this that's needed for atonement, much more that's
needed for forgiveness, for the putting away of sin, for justification,
for righteousness before God. Believing God, faith in Christ
does not atone for sin. Believing God, faith in Christ
does not accomplish redemption. Believing God, faith in Christ
does not bring righteousness. Three times God says with regard
to these sacrifices, kill it, kill it, kill it. Nothing but
the death of God's sacrifice, God's son will atone for sin. Look at verse five. Kill the
bullock before the Lord. Look at verse 10. Kill it, that
is the lamb, on the side of the altar. Verse 15, of the turtle
dove we read, wring off his head. Now let's pick up reading at
verse five. And he shall kill the bullock before the Lord.
And the priest Aaron's son shall bring the blood. and sprinkle
the blood round about upon the altar that is by the door of
the tabernacle of the congregation. And he shall flay." We don't
use that word much. This is what you do with a dead
animal that you've just killed that deer, you've just killed
that calf, or you've just killed that hog, you skin it, skin it. He shall skin the burnt offering
and cut it into his pieces. And the sons of Aaron, the priest,
shall put fire upon the altar, and lay the wood in order upon
the fire. And the priest, Aaron's sons,
shall lay the parts, the head, and the fat in order upon the
wood that is on the fire, which is upon the altar. But his inwards
and his legs shall he wash in water, and the priest shall burn
all on the altar, to be a burnt sacrifice, an offering made by
fire of a sweet savor unto the Lord. And if his offering be
of the flocks, namely of the sheep or of the goats, for a
burnt sacrifice, he shall bring it a male without blemish, and
he shall kill it on the side of the altar, northward before
the Lord. And the priest, Aaron's sons,
shall sprinkle his blood round about upon the altar, and he
shall cut it into his pieces with his head and his fat. And
the priest shall lay them in order on the wood that is on
the fire, which is upon the altar. but he shall wash the edwards
and the legs with water, and the priest shall bring it all
and burn it upon the altar. It is a burnt sacrifice, an offering
made by fire of sweet savor unto the Lord. And if the burnt sacrifice
for his sin offering to the Lord be of the fowls, then he shall
bring his offering of turtle doves or of young pigeons, and
the priest shall bring it unto the altar and wring off his neck
and burn it on the altar. And the blood thereof shall be
wrung out at the side of the altar. And he shall pluck away
his crop with his feathers and cast it beside the altar on the
east part by the place of the ashes. And he shall cleave it
with the wings thereof, but shall not divide it asunder. And the
priest shall burn it upon the altar, upon the wood that is
upon the fire. It is a burnt sacrifice, an offering
made by fire of a sweet savor unto the Lord. I want to show
you in this message the necessity and the benefits, the necessity
and the blessings, the necessity and the results of Christ's death
upon the cursed tree as our all-glorious substitute. Here we're specifically
told that the man who brought the sacrifice was to kill it
before the Lord. That's a picture of the execution
of God's wrath and justice by the man himself. The sinner,
the guilty one, kills the animal because you and I, by our sins,
are the executioners of God's darling son. He died by the hands of wicked
men. for the sins of wicked men, and
we're the men. Not only that, but all things
in God's creation, all men and all events, all things in heaven,
earth, and hell are instruments by which God executes His wrath
upon sin. We read in the Scripture of a
day soon to come when our God shall burn up this present earth. He shall burn up this present
creation and make all things new. because all creation has
been affected and tainted and polluted by sin. And so the Lord
God uses the whole of the curse to execute his judgment upon
sin and upon guilt. In the last day, when the wicked are cast into
hell, all that has been shall be used
of God forever to execute his wrath upon the wicked. The man
is required to kill the beast of sacrifice, but only the priest,
God's appointed priest, could make atonement. Only the priest,
God's appointed priest, on the basis of atonement could dispense
mercy. Now I have to pause for a minute
because I recognize that in this day of religious infidelity and
idolatry. There are multitudes the world
over, duped with papacy, and many who do not even pretend
to be papist, who are yet duped with papacy, imagining somehow
that men must approach another man, and that man acting as a
priest before God, a priest from God, a priest representing God,
receives their confession, and then gives them God's blessing. We have a priest. one great high
priest, Jesus Christ the Lord, just as Israel had one great
high priest. And our great high priest is
that one who made the sacrifice, who is the sacrifice, who accepted
the sacrifice, and he is the one, the only one, by whom the
blessings of the sacrifice are dispensed to us and conferred
upon us. I stress this because I recognize
that even in churches like our own, where men and women faithfully
hear the gospel of God's grace, you still have the baggage of
religion. And folks want to come to the
preacher. or come to the church and confess
sin. And they don't really want to,
they wanna come confess little things. You know, little things
like thieving or adultery or murder or something like that.
They don't wanna tell what they are inside. They wanna confess
some act. Some act with which other men
can identify because they're just like them. You see, we all
are the same. We're all sinners. And then from
that church, or from the preacher, get absolution, and the preacher
can say, yeah, everything's all right now. You go home and everything's
okay. I can't tell you how many times
I was told as a boy, every time I got in trouble, and Mama took
me to church, and we'd have some kind of scare, and I'd go rededicate,
or make a profession, or make a profession, or rededicate.
Somebody said, everything's all right now, Don. Everything's
all right now. I'll never tell you that. needing to come asking
me, because I don't know. I won't seek to declare to you
what only God can declare to you. Only Christ himself can
dispense mercy and the blessing of mercy. Only believing him
will you find peace and acceptance with God. God's great high priest
alone made atonement for our sins. And God's great high priest
alone grants us the blessedness of forgiveness. The animal had
to be killed before the Lord. What a sight, solemn and instructive
in every detail. The priest catches the blood
in a bowl, that warm blood of life and the blood of the slain
lamb or the slain bullock or the slain fowl is brought to
the altar. The eyes of the priest on the
blood and he brings the sacrificed life to God. Andrew Bonar made
this observation. He said, The living soul of the
sinner were carried in its utter helplessness, in all its filthiness,
and laid down before the Holy One. The priest comes and brings
that sacrifice. He brings the blood of the sinner,
represented by the sacrifice. The blood of that sinner's life,
represented by the blood, the life of that sinner, and lays
it before God in the sacrifice. And then the blood is sprinkled.
The priest takes the blood of the slain animal and sprinkles
it round about upon the altar. The life of the sacrifice has
been taken away. The sinner stands, as it were,
naked before God. There's no covering for his sin.
He deserves the death symbolized in the animal slaughter. Death
by God's law. Death by God's justice. A violent
death. We tend to wanna make this thing
look prettier than it is. A violent death. A violent death. Throat slit. The animal skinned. Cut in pieces. Necks rung off. Suffering a violent death. because
God Almighty must and will punish sin in the holy violence of his
offended justice. I mean, today, I just read yesterday. Yeah, it was yesterday. Yeah,
yesterday. Just read about a fellow I know
who just recently has decided that there's no such thing as
hell, no such thing as damnation, no such thing as everlasting
punishment, and yet pretend to believe the gospel of God's grace.
God's law demands punishment. Sin must and will be punished. This man's punished in the sacrifice
in the presence of God. Punished and put to death for
sin. Death for the satisfaction of God's holiness, justice, and
truth. And the very reason that the
fires of hell, whatever they are, are everlasting torment
is that man, not one man, not many men, not all men can ever
satisfy the wrath and justice of the infinite God. Only the
God man can do that. And bless God he has. As the
blood on the door of the house in Egypt on the night of the
Lord's Passover represented the death of the firstborn in the
house. So here the blood on the altar
represents the death of the sinner for whom the sacrifice was made. And thereby we're told that the
Lord of glory, the Son of God, our most blessed Christ, poured
out his soul unto death as our substitute. blood is poured out
round about the altar on all sides so that all could see and
our Lord Jesus Christ by his blood cries out to sinners everywhere
look unto me and be you saved all the ends of the earth. He
is God's appointed sacrifice for sin, the only sacrifice for
sin, the infinitely meritorious effectual sacrifice for sin.
In all of its details, the slaying of this sacrifice, the bullock,
the lamb, or the turtle dove, as described in Leviticus 1,
portrays the death of our Lord Jesus at Calvary. Now let me
show you three or four things from this concerning the death
of our Savior, and I'll send you home, I hope, better off
for it. I'll spend the bulk of my time that's left on this.
This is the most important thing I've got to say. The death of
Christ for sin was absolutely necessary. It was absolutely
necessary. Arthur Pink in his book on the
Atonement, on the Satisfaction of Christ wrote a very, very
good book. Declaration he makes in that
book, I have to take great objection to. It has often been made. He
said, God is sovereign. He could have saved sinners in
many other ways, but he chose to save sinners by the sacrifice
of his son. Oh, what a horrible suggestion. That is to suggest that Christ
died for nothing. that it wasn't necessary. Indeed,
the Apostle Paul, writing by divine inspiration in Galatians
2, says, if righteousness come by the law, that is, if it's
possible for men and women to be saved by obeying the law,
then Christ is dead in vain. Christ died for nothing. That
is a monstrous absurdity. It cannot be endured. The death
of our Lord Jesus Christ was absolutely necessary for several
reasons. First, atonement and the remission
of sins are not in the life of the sacrifice, but in the death
of the sacrifice. Why was it necessary, essential
for Christ to die? Our God tells us in Leviticus
17 11, the life of the flesh is in the blood. Our Lord's obedience
unto God as a man If he had concluded his life just dying in an ordinary
way, would have made no satisfaction for sin. would have not put away
a single sin, would not have made anyone righteous. His life
of obedience is as essential as his death, but his life without
his violent, substitutionary, penal, sin-atoning sacrifice
in the room of his people would never have benefited anybody
eternally. Christ died because justice must
be satisfied. That's what is portrayed in all
the Old Testament sacrifices, in all the Old Testament commandments
of law, in all the ceremonies of Israel required by the law,
in all the work of the priesthood, in all the instruments of divine
worship. Somebody has got to die! because justice must be satisfied. That's the message of this book.
It was the message of all the Old Testament scriptures. It
is the message of all the New Testament scriptures. David himself
spoke in Psalm 22 and said, it is by my sacrifice, the Lord
Jesus speaking by him. He said, it is by me being made
sin, forsaken of God and put to death, that I shall ascend
as king in heaven and establish my kingdom. Isaiah tells us in
Isaiah 53, it is by his death that the Lord Jesus Christ, having
fulfilled his obedience to God, is made king over all things
and the pleasure of the Lord prospers in his hand. As the
death of Christ was the subject of the Old Testament and of the
New, we understand that our Lord Jesus Christ redeemed us only
by the shedding of his blood. He saved us only by dying in
our stead. It was not his life, not his
example. It is not our repentance toward
God. It is not our faith in Christ.
It is not even our obedience to Christ that puts away sin
and satisfies God's requirement. Rather, it is the death of God's
Son. By the sacrifice of Christ, sin
is purged away. By him, we have redemption through
his blood, the forgiveness of sin. The blood of Jesus Christ,
God's son, cleanses us from all sin. Recently, I don't know whether
they've been talking together or not, but both Mark Henson
and my wife discussed with me at a little bit of length, what
a strange thing, that God should use blood to make us white and
clean. What a strange thing. What's
dirtier than blood? What's more vile than blood? What's harder to get out than
blood? But our God in his infinite wisdom,
grace, and goodness takes the unlikeliest of means, the blood
of his son. and makes for us a fountain in
which to wash our souls and wash our robes and make them clean
and white before his eye of omniscience. By the blood, sin is washed away. The death and bloodshed of our
Lord Jesus Christ is the center of all true gospel preaching.
It shall be the center of all our worship in heaven, of all
our songs forever, and it ought to be the center of all things
here. Our Lord gave us two blessed
ordinances. Both of those ordinances are to remind us of blood. By
baptism, we confess our faith in Christ, our crucified Redeemer,
He fulfilled all righteousness by satisfying divine justice. He died in our stead. He was
buried in the tomb and he rose again. And that's what we confess
in baptism. The Lord's table, we had the
bread and the wine. The body and the blood separated,
a clear picture of death. And our Lord says to us, every
time you eat this bread and drink this cup, you do show forth the
Lord's death till he come. Never forget it. We're redeemed
to God by the blood of Christ. The sacrifice had to be slain.
The blood must be shed. Our sins could not be pardoned,
but by blood. Now I've stressed that over and
over again. Let's turn one more time to Romans chapter 3 and
read it. Romans chapter 3. This is one
of those passages of scripture I would suggest you make it your
business to commit it to memory and read it often even though
you memorize it. Romans 3 verse 24. Paul says,
we are justified freely. That word is without a cause.
without any cause in ourselves, without any cost from us. We're
justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is
in Christ Jesus, whom God has set forth to be a propitiation,
a justice satisfying sacrifice through faith in His blood. to
declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are
past. Not to declare his love, not to declare his mercy, not
to declare his grace, to declare that God is righteous in forgiving
sin. Through the forbearance of God,
to declare, I say at this time, his righteousness, that he might
be just and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.
Death is the penalty of sin. Once our sins were laid upon
Christ, once he was made sin for us, death must be given to
him. He must be executed, executed
under wrath, executed violently by God's own hand. Nothing else
could satisfy the law and justice of Christ. This, I repeat, is
the only way God can save sinners. Now listen to me. There are some
things even God can't do. There are some things God can't
do. God is not a man that he should repent. God is truth. He cannot lie. God cannot forgive
sin without satisfaction. He declares his glory to be that
he is God who will by no means clear the guilty, but God who
is gracious to whom he will be gracious, who delights in mercy,
who pardoneth iniquity. How can he both refuse to forgive
sin and forgive sin? Only by satisfying his justice,
putting sin away through the sacrifice of his son. And God
Almighty cannot, God Almighty cannot, are you listening to
me? God Almighty cannot punish sin again once satisfaction has
been made. God cannot punish both the sinner
and the one for whom Christ has died. That one who brought his
sacrifice and laid it on the altar as God required, that one
who left his sacrifice at God's altar and went home was symbolically
and ceremonially forgiven of sin. He walked home without any
fear or dread. Now that's only in a picture,
because those sacrifices offered on Jewish altars could never
take away sin. But now, we come to God with
him who is the true sacrifice. That one who has made sin for
us, on whom God laid, leaned, pressed on him, and made to be
his our sins. and punished until justice was
satisfied. Now, God in justice cannot punish
those for whom Christ has died. Every sinner for whom Jesus Christ
died at Calvary must go free. That means every sinner who comes
to God by faith in Christ and lays his hands upon the head of God's sacrifice,
leans his whole being where God has leaned all his justice, leans
all his being on him whose blood is poured out at God's own hand. That sinner is redeemed and cannot
be charged with sin. This is how our Lord put it. He that believeth on the Son
of God hath everlasting life. He that believeth on the Son
of God hath everlasting life. Now, come to Christ, lay your hands right here on
God's own sword and keep them right here. and
go home rejoicing, redeemed, how I love to proclaim it, redeemed
by the blood of the lamb. I'm redeemed, redeemed forever
by the blood of Christ and God will never hold me accountable
for sin. He charged my sin to his son.
If that doesn't make your heart rejoice, if that doesn't cause
you to sing and dance before God, if that doesn't invigorate
your soul with praise and devotion and consecration to our Redeemer,
nothing can and nothing will. Amen.