The Blood--The New Testament

THE BLOOD--THE NEW TESTAMENT.

Those who were here yesterday will remember that we had for our subject, the Blood, as found in the Old Testament. To-day, we will consider it in the New Testament. There are those who say that it is all one story; that instead of being two books, it is but one. There is one class of people who say they believe in the New, but not in the Old Testament; and another class beleive in the Old Testament, but not in the New. But if you read it carefully, you cannot divide it. If you change any part of it, it is all gone. The very passages that some wish to throw out of the Old Testament and yet believe tho New Testament, these very passages confirm the others. Some say, "I do not believe there was such a thing as a deluge; we do not believe there was any such thing as a flood." But Christ says, "As it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be." Some say, "We do not believe that Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed in flames and buried; do you?" Yes, we believe what Christ believed. He says, "Remember Lot's wife." They say, "We do not believe the whale ever swallowed Jonah; do you?" Yes, we believe what Christ taught; and when Christ says, "As Jonah was three days in the whale's belly," he put his divine soul into the Old Testament as in the New. It is one book, therefore. Whoever touches any part of the Bible, touches it all. That is what the questioner is trying to do, to break down the Word of God, and our confidence in God's testimony, and God's record of his Son. Yesterday I did not have time to go through the Old Testament, and say all I wanted to say about the blood as there described. To-day we will pass over into the New Testament, and see what Scripture says about blood in the New Testament.

The first thing I call your attention to is, that we are redeemed by the blood. There is no other redemption. In the 1st Epistle of Peter, 1st chapter, 18th verse: "Forasmuch as ye know that ye 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." You are redeemed by the precious blood of Christ. Redemption is more than salvation, really. A man might rescue another from sudden death. He might see a man in a carriage, with the horses dashing through the street, and in a moment his life would be gone, dashed to pieces against the wall. He might stop that steed and save the man's life. He would be the savior of that man. Christ is more than our Savior. He is our Redeemer. He has redeemed us with his blood. Redemption is to buy back. When Christ came, he bought us back. He says, You have sold yourselves for naught; but you shall be redeemed without money. Though salvation is free to us, and it is without money and without price; yet it cost God all that he had to do it It was the blood of Christ, his only Son, that redeemed us. It cost him his precious* blood to buy us back. Do you think silver and gold could have redeemed this world? Why God could have created milions of worlds of gold, if silver and gold could have done it; but we could be redeemed not by such corruptible things as silver and gold. The apostle looks upon these with scorn and contempt, when it comes to the subject of redemption. You are redeemed by the precious blood of the Son of God, as of a lamb without a spot or blemish. The ioy of every Christian is, that he has been bought back by the blood of Christ. Once, when I was going to speak in a little town, on our way there, there was a young man riding in front of us; and I said to my companion: "Who is that young man? I do not remember to have seen him before." He said, "Look over there. Do you see that beautiful meadow, and that large farm, and the house overthere? That young man's father drank that all up while he lived, and hit son, there, went away, and went industriously to work, and accumulated money, and came back, redeemed the old homestead, and took his mother out of the poorhouse, and is now on his way to church,

there, with his mothfir." That was the story of the old Adam. He did the same thing. He sold us out of the hands of justice; and the Son of God came to buy us back. A friend of mine was coming from Dublin, some time ago, and met an Irish boy with an English iparrow in his hands. The bird was trembling for its life, and trying to get back its liberty; but the boy was stronger thaii the sparrow, and would not let it escape. The man tried to get the boy to let the bird go. He said: "My boy, why don't you open your hands *nd let the bird fly away?' The boy replied, "Faith, and I won't be doing that, when I have been after him for hours, and have just got him." Then he tried to get the boy to do it from principle, telling him that it was right to let the poor bird have its freedom again; but the boy would not do it, and finally the man bought him with a piece of money. When he put the money into the boy's hand, in so doing he redeemed the sparrow. At first, the little thing did not realize that it had its liberty. It chirped a few times, and looked around, and then it tried its little wings again, and went up singing, as if it laid: "Thank you, thank you; you have redeemed me." That is what Christ did. And he says, "I will contend with him that contendeth against thee." He gave us our ransom. He redeemed with his own blood this lost world. There is redemption for every soul that wants to be redeemed.

We are not only redeemed by blood, but we are justified. This is more than pardon. If a man is washed in the blood, he is as just as if he had never sinned. The question was asked me, "How can a man be justified with God?" A man is justified by his precious blood. In the 3d chapter of Romans, 23d verse, it says, "For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God. Being justified freely by his grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus." So, if a man has been redeemed by the blood of Christ, he is justified. Or, in other words, God says, "I have nothing in my heart against you." We talk about our sins being pardoned and forgiven. In reality, no sinner is forgiven. Sin has to be atoned for, and the Son of God has made atonement. He has justified us with his own blood. In the 5th chapter of Romans, 9th verse, it says: "Much more, then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him.

Then, another thing the blood does; it makes us all equal—one kindred, with one tongue, one language. A man that has been sheltered by the blood of Christ, he talks the same language with every other that has been so sheltered. You can tell a man that talks the language of Zion. He may not be able to talk the same language, but his language has the same spirit. Paul says, in the 17th chapter of Acts, 26th verse: "And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth." Hath made of all nations one blood! The blood of Jesus Christ brings us together, makes us one, brings us all to one level. Just before the war came on, during the days of slavery, I was in Boston. They were very exciting time* there then; and Dr. Kirk was preaching on the subject of the cross. It was during the great strife, when there was a great deal of hatred and suspicion against foreigners then in our country. It was in the time of the Know-Nothing party; and there was a great deal of feeling against the blacks and a great deal of feeling against the Irish. Dr. Kirk said, when he came up to the cross to get salvation, he found a poor black man on the right and an Irishman on his left; and the blood came trickling down from the wounded side of the Son of God, and made them all brothers and all alike and equal. That is what the blood does. It makes us all one kindred, and brings us all into the family of God. We are all saved by the same blood.

The blood has two cries. It either cries for our condemnation or for our salvation. If we reject the blood, it cries out for our condemnation. If we are sheltered behind the blood, an'I if we fly to that blood for refuge, it cries out for our protection and for our salvation. We will turn a moment to the First Colossians, 1st chapter and 20th verse: "And having made peace through the blood of his cross;" and then with that let us read a verse that one will find in John, 19th chapter and the 34th verse: "But one of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side, and forthwith came there out blood and water. And he that saw it bare record, and his record is true, and he knoweth that he saith true." He saw the blood that came out of that side, and thought, now there is the blood that speaketh peace. But you know when Pilate washed his hands and said, "I am innocent of the blood of this just man," the mob cried out, "Let his blood be upon us and upon our children." Not to save us, not to redeem us, not to wash us, not to justify us, not to cleanse us; but, '"Let his blood be upon us and upon our children. We are responsible for the act." They took it upon themselves; but what a prayer it was! Would to God that the prayer had been: "His blood be upon u» and our children to cleanse us, and save us, and speak peace to our guilty conscience." How it would have been blessed! But their cry was, let his blood he upon us, said in all scorn and derision. That is the cry to-day of hundreds of thousands: "We are not going to be saved by the blood; we don't believe in any such thing. "We will be responsible for rejecting him and casting him away." Oh, my friends, if we ignore the blood we are lost. There is no other way of being cleansed from our sins It says in the 1st chapter of Revelation and 6th verse: "Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood." Now, if he so washed us, we are clean. If the Son, by his coming, washed us, and if the blood did not cleanse us, how are we to be cleansed? How are we ever to come into the presence of the pure and holy God, and see him in

high heaven, where he sits upon his throne? No man until he is washed by the blood can see God—he will have no desire to see him. Some people tell us that the Bible does not contain anything on the subject of the blood. I received a letter from a lady, some time ago, stating that it was the Apostles that taught it; that Christ did not say one solitary word about it. So she threw out the Epistles and the teaching of Paul, and said she took the teachings of Jesus Christ, because there was no blood in them. In Matthew, 26th chapter and 28th verse, it says; "For this is my blood of the New Testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins." And then you will find, in the 9th chapter of Hebrews, 22d verse, that "Without the shedding of blood there is no remission." I would like to ask the people who believe in the Bible and yet try to ignore the doctrine of blood, What are you going to do with that portion of Scripture where it says that "Without the shedding of blood there is no remission?" From the time that Adam fell in Eden to the present time, there has never been a soul saved but by the shedding of blood; there has never been a soul prepared for the coming to God except by the shedding of blood. The Holy Ghost comes and dwells with that soul that is washed in the blood of redemption, and it becomes a temple for the Holy Ghost to dwell in, but never until it has been cleansed by the shedding of the blood.

"There isafountain filled with hlood
Drawn from Immanuel's veins."

Why do we sing that song? Why do we like to sing that hymn? It is because it has got the blood in it. The hymns that have the scarlet line running through them will never be lost. That hymn never will be lost; as long as there is a church on earth, it will be sung. There is not a nation in the world, where there is a Christian, but that they have that hymn translated into their own language. I question if there is an hour in the whole twenty-four but in some parts of the earth they are singing that hymn—

"There is a fountain filled with blood
Drawn from Immanuel's veins."

Why do you like that hymn,

••Just as I am without one plea,
Save that thy blood was shed for me V

Why is it that that hymn is so popular? Why does the Church of God like it and sing it? Why do we sing it so often? Because it has got the precious blood in it. Then there is the familiar hymn,

"R ick of ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself In thee."

Why do we all like that so much? Because it speaks of that fo«n

tain which has been opened in the house of David for sin and uncleanness, whereby your sins may be washed away in the blood of the Lamb. Everything that blood touches, it redeems. When the blood came out of the Son of God and touched the Roman spear, it touched the Roman covenant; and when the blood came out and touched this earth, it redeemed it. Though the usurper has got it now, Jesus Christ will have it by and by. Everything that blood touches, it purifies and redeems.

And so, my friends, what you want is to have the blood applied to you, applied to your sins. You want to be cleansed by it; and as long as there is blood upon the mercy-seat, there is hope for the vilest sinner that walks the face of the earth. God, seeing us look at the blood upon the mercy-seat, says: "Press in! Press in, sinners! Press into the kingdom of God!" The vilest can come, if he will. That is what the blood of Christ was shed for; to cover sin, and to bless us, and wash us, and prepare us for God's kingdom. You may turn a moment to Hebrews, 10th chapter. I wish I had time to go through Hebrews with this wonderful subject; for there is more said in Hebrews about the blood than in any other book in the Bible. Now, it says at the 19th verse: "Having, therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us through the vail, that is to say, his flesh." Before, he had to go to the bigh priest; but now God has opened a new and living way and made all his children kings and priests; and we don't now need any one to intercede for us. When Christ said, "It is finished," the vail of the temple was rent. It does not say it was rent from the bottom up. No, it was rent downwards. It was God that seized that vail and tore it open; and God came out, and man can go in there now. Through his flesh the vail was rent; and now all of us, through the precious blood of Christ, are made kings and priests, and can go boldly into the holiest. Now a living way has been opened—that is what Christ has done. "By a new and living way which he hath consecrated for us through the vail, that is to say, his flesh; and having a high priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering, for he is faithful that promised." Now turn to the 28th verse of that same chapter: "He that despised Moses's law died without mercy, under two or three witnesses. Of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace?"

Now, I would like to ask friends here to-day that ignore the whole aabject of the blood, where is your hope? What is it based on? What are you building yuur hopes of heaven on? Is it on your good deeds? He says those men that despised Moses's law died without mercy. How much more worthy of punishment shall he be thought who hath trodden under foot the blood of the Son of God, the blood of the covenant? I heard of a man, some time ago, that was going to get into heaven in his own way. He did not believe in the Bible or the love of God, but was going to get in on account of his good deeds. He was very liberal, gave a great deal of money, and he thought the more he gave the better it would be in the other world. I don't, as a general thing, believe in dreams, but sometimes they teach good lessons. Well, this man deamed one night that he was building a ladder to heaven, and he dreamed that every good deed he did it put him one round higher on this ladder, and when he did an extra good deed it put him up a good many rounds; and in his dream he kept going, going up, until at last he got out of sight, and he went on ana on doing his good deeds, and the ladder went up higher and higher, until at last he thought he saw it run up to the very throne of God. Then, in his dream, he died, and a mighty Voice came rollling down from above, "He that climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber;" and down came his ladder. And he woke from his sleep and thought, "If I go to heaven I must go some other way." My friends, it is by the way of the blood that we are to get to heaven. If a man has got to pay his way there, only a few can get there. What are you going to do with these poor sick people, who cannot work at all and make money to bestow on others? Axe they to be lost and damned? No, thank God! He has made the way so easy and open that the weak and the young, and the smallest and poorest can be saved, if they will. He has made a new and living way right up to the Throne. The despised and persecuted can go up, as well as anybody else. Let me read that again: "He that despised Moses's law died without mercy, under two or three witnesses." That is established. You can go out of the Bible and find that in history.

Now, friends, let me ask you, Where is your hope? How are you going to be saved? If the Bible is true, and 1 suppose there is hardly one here but believes in it, what are you going to do with that passage that says in Hebrews, "Without the shedding of blood there is no remission?" If you have this blessed gospel of Jesus Christ offered to you, sent to you, and you send back the insulting message that you don't want it, where is your hope? What is your hope? How are you going to be saved? How are you going to escape the condemnation of the law? Now, I have traveled considerably during the last two or three years and have met many ministers; and I have learned that the man who makes much of the b'ood in his preaching, much of the atonement, and holds up Christ as the

only substitute, God honors his preaching; and the man that covers up this glorious truth, there is no power in his preaching. He may draw great crowds, and they may hover around him for a few years; but when he at last goes, the church itself goes down, because it had no power in itself, and their prayer-meetings had no power. The minister would get up a good choir, and a great crowd to hear the music and the fine singing; but when it comes to the real Spirit of power they have not got it. And any religion that takes the blood and covers it up, hasn't any power.

I was in a-city in Europe, and a young minister came to me and said: "Moody, what makes the difference between your success in preaching and mine? Either you are right, and I am wrong; or I am right and you are wrong," Said I: "I don't know what the difference is; for you have heard me, and I have never heard you preach. What is the difference?" Said he: "You make a great deal out of the death of Christ, and I don't make anything out of it I don't think it has anything to do with it. I preach the life." Said I: "What do you do with this: 'He hath borne our sins in his own body on the tree?"' Said he, "I never preached that." Said I: "What do you do with this: 'He was wounded for our transgressions; He was bruised for our iniquities, and with his stripes we are healed?'" Said he, "I never preached that." "Well," said I again, "what do you do with this: 'Without the shedding of blood there is no remission?'" Said he, "I never preached that." I asked him, "What do you preach?" "Well," he says, "I preach a moral essay." Said I: "My friend, if you take the blood out of the Bible, it is all a myth to me." Said he, "I think the whole thing is a sham." "Then," said I, "I advise you to get out of the ministry very quick. I would not preach a sham. If the Bible is untrue, let us stop preaching, and come out at once like men, and fight against it, if it is a sham and untrue; but if these things are true, and Jesus Christ left heaven and came into this world to shed his blood and save sinners, then let us lay hold of it and preach it, in season and out of season." In the college at Princeton this last year, when the students were readv to go forth into the world, the old man, their instructor, would stand up there and say, "Young men, make much of the blood. Young men, make much of the blood!" And I have learned this, that a minister who makes much of the blood and makes much of substitution and holds Christ up as the sinner's only hope, God blesses his preaching. And if the apostles didn't preach that, what did they preach? You take the great doctrine of substitution out of the preaching of Paul, Peter, John, James, and Philip, and of all those holy men, and you take out all that they preached. And so, my friends, there don't seem to be one ray of hope for the man that ignores the blessed, blessed subject of the blood. "Without the •bedding of blood there is no remission,"

It is said of Julian, the great apostate, that when he was trying to (tamp out Christianity in the days of Rome's prosperity, before it received Christianity; when he was trying to drive .those Christians away, he received a mortal wound, and as he pulled the spear out of his side, he took a handful of the blood that gushed forth from the wound, and threw it toward heaven as be reeled and staggered, crying out, "There, Galilean! Thou has conquered!" We are all conqured, overcome by the blood of the Lamb.

The only way to heaven is by the word of his testimony and his blood. Revelation is full of the subject. It would take days to go through Revelation and see all it contains about blood. The only thing that Christ left down here in the world of his person was his blood. His flesh, his bones, he took away with him; and when he hung there on Calvary, and the blood came out of his hands, and out of his feet, and from his bruised side, and trickled down on the earth, it was never gathered up. It was left there; and God holds the world responsible for it. What are you going to do with it? Are you going to trample it under foot; and send a message to heaven that you don't care for it, that you despise, hate it? Or, are you going to find a refuge and shelter behind it? It is Christ's, shed for the salvation of every soul here within these walls. It is said every man that goes up, goes by the way of the blood. You cannot think about Abel, but you think of the bleeding lamb. So, my friends, the question to-day is, what are we going to do with this subject? I have heard of an English lady who was greatly troubled about her soul, for several months; and the way her conversion was brought about, was this: She told her servant one day to go out and kill a lamb, and told him what to do with all the different parts except the blood; and presently, after he had killed the lamb, he came and asked her, "What shall I do with the blood of the lamb?" And God used it as the arrow that should go down into her soul; and she began to walk her room and ask herself, "What shall I do with the blood of the Son of God?" What are you going to do with that precious blood that flows out of Calvary? Are you going to let it cleanse you from sin? What say your Will you take it, and by and by stand with your garments made white by the blood of the Lamb, and sing the song of redemption?

During the war, a New York minister, I think it was, came down among the soldiers in the hospital, and preached to them the way to Christ, and helped them in their dying hours. He found one man whose eyes were closed, and who was muttering something ab iut "Blood, blood;" aud the old doctor thought he was thinking of the 'carnage of the battle-field and the blood he had seen there; and going up to him, he tried to divert his mind. But the young man looked up, and said: "Oh, doctor, it was not that that I was thinking of; 1 was thinking how precious the blood of Christ is to me. now

that I am dying. It covers all my sins." Oh, my friends, the dying hour will come. We are hastening on to death. If Christ is not your all in all, what is to become of you? I was on the Pacific coast, some time ago; and there they were telling me about a stage-driver who had died a little while ago. And you that have been there know that those men who drive those coaches make a good deal of the brake; for they have to keep their feet upon it all the time going down the mountains. And as this poor fellow was breathing his last in his bed, he cried out: "I am on the down grade, and can't reach the brake!" Those were his last words. There was not a stage-driver there, when I was there, but was talking about it. Just about that time, Rev. Alfred Cookman, a very eminent man in our country, was dying, here in New York or New Jersey—a holy man of God, who had lifted the banner of Christ and won many to Christ; and he was passing away in the prime of life. There, stood his wife and friends around his bedside, and there was seemingly a heavenly halo around that couch; and just expiring, he said: "I am sweeping through the gates, washed in the blood of the Lamb!" Those were his last words. They live to-day in the nation. I believe they will never be forgotten. Your time will come, and then it will be grand to die with those words upon your lips—"I am sweeping through the gates, washed in the blood of tlie Lamb."