Many, many years ago, I used
to carry a hardback, wide margin Bible, and a friend of mine,
Brother Ron Rumberg, took that Bible and covered it in leather,
and he dealt in old books a good bit, and he put a spine on it
that had little ridges on the back of it, 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, and please don't do it, I see a lot of folks take a new
book, first thing they do is they open it up and bend it backwards,
you're going to break the spine because they're just glued together.
Not a hand-sewn book. A 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 outline. The blood. That blood is spilt. That blood is sprinkled. That blood is seen. Spilt, sprinkled,
seen. 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. 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 the hymns 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 calper, ere
since by faith I saw the stream. Christ's flowing wounds supply. Redeeming love has been my theme
and shall be till I die. When David and Celeste came in
this morning, as you said, they'd been listening to a couple of
messages I preached in 1997. I didn't know what they were
at first. They told me later, but I said,
nothing has changed, has it? Nothing has changed. And God
helping me, nothing 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's 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. Give them
eternal life and no man is able to pluck them out of my hand
My father which gave than me is greater than all and no man
is able to pluck them out of my father's hand there in his
hand in his hand as my brother And friend, Brother Jim Jimsick
out in Arizona that 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 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. But 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
right to your face about it. Please don't ever think or say
to anyone Well, my chickens have come home to roost. God's dealing
with me because of all my past sin. Not if you're His. Not if you're His. 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 or 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? Oh, 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 divine justice at Calvary. The blood of the lamb had to
be violently spilt or we could never have been saved. In verses
three through six of Exodus 12, the Lord God said, you go get
a lamb. You get a male of the first year. and you shut it up for four days
and watch it. Be sure there's no spot of blemish
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 awe. in utter awe. Men frequently
want to debate with me about various things, and when I was
younger, and God forgive me, less overwhelmed. less utterly awed by his sacrifice. I'd argue with him, 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 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 suffer 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,
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 spilled. 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 17, 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. 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 is 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 lentil 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 in a 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, 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 out to the road here and
I had gone somewhere to a meeting. I forgot where I had gone. But
I was coming back in on Lexington Avenue and there was a police
officer sitting in the Campbellite 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, didn't even realize
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 just, I'm
talking about before I got to Wilderness 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, let me sign this right there. I was still speeding. And I had to pay a fine. And
I paid the fine. And I've driven by that Campbell
Light 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 just, aren't you afraid of it? 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. 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 says to me, as He said to
Enoch, you please God. You please God. The blood must
be Told you many times about going to see Brother Harold Martin. He was one of the deacon's lookout
when they called me 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 sank into final unconsciousness, 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 atonement. 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 out there
in that hallway back yonder and shut that door, what do you reckon
you could see inside here? 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 and 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. No, 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. Now that's a big, big word. I
recall years and years ago, sitting by the campfire, out in, just
outside of Hinton, West Virginia, my sisters had come up to join
us for the 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 with cancer, I used 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 eats
the 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 ago, I'll be 48 in just a little while. That lady there gave me this
ring. It's a token. You're married. You're mine. 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
until I got it, because that ring's important. To me and to
her, that's a token. That's a token. You fellas who
are courting, you'll 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 with
an everlasting love. See here, I'll show you. I gave
my son to be perpetuation for 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? Here's 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 and accepted everything by
Christ? Because His blood, this blood
He gave for a token, He says it is to me a sweet-smelling
savor. Ah, sweet-smelling savor. Friday night, we got home to
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 shall be
to you for a token. The blood is a token of free
access. The veils ran in too, from top
to bottom. And God says, sinners come and
welcome. Come on in. If you wanna come in, you can.
If you want to, you can. Come on in. Sinners are welcome
because the blood's accepted. It is a token of blessed, perfect,
constant, unending, everlasting safety. The other night back
in the office, Brother Rex reminded me 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 much except the news, and that's
not fit to watch either. But we about always watch gun
smoke or a wagon train. And wagon trains, they'd take
those folks, usually starting 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 some out
in Texas, Oklahoma, just a frightening sight. They'd say, don't drive
into the smoke. And if you ever get close, you'll know why. And
how are they going to protect themselves? How are they going
to protect themselves? They'd go back a ways and set a fire,
that thing blowing behind them, and let it burn off. And then
they'd take the wagons and the cattle and the people and circle
them all up on that burnt ground. And they'd stay there until that
fire had gone completely bound and everything 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 pavement God cannot twice demand. First
at my bleeding surety's head and then again at mine. Come
to Christ. and stand forever before God
on burnt ground. And God says, the blood shall
be to you for a token. And when I see the blood, I'll
pass over you. That the plague come not near
you to destroy you, when I smite the Egyptians. Amen.