The Red Word
“The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.” — 1 John i.,7.
EIGHTEEN centuries ago there lived one Jesus.
Publius Lentulus, in a letter to the Roman senate, describes him as “a man of stature somewhat tall; his hair the color of a chestnut fully ripe, plain to the ears, whence downward it is more orient, curling and waving about the shoulders; in the midst of his forehead is a stream, or partition of his hair; forehead plain, and very delicate; his face without spot or wrinkle, a lovely red; his nose and mouth so forked as nothing can be represented; his beard thick, in color like his hair — not very long; his eyes gray, quick, and clear.” He must die. The French army in Italy found a brass plate on which was a copy of his death-warrant, signed by John Zorobabel, Raphael Robani, Daniel Robani, and Capet.
Sometimes men on the wray to the scaffold have been rescued by the mob. No such attempt was made in this case, for the mob wTere against him. From nine A.M. till three P.M. Jesus hung a-dying. It was a scene of blood. We are so constituted that nothing is so exciting as blood. It is not the child’s cry in the street that so arouses you as the crimson dripping from its lip. In the dark hall, seeing the finger-marks of blood on the plastering, you cry, “What terrible deed has been done here?” Looking upon this suspended victim of the cross, we thrill with the sight of blood — blood dripping from thorn and nail, blood rushing upon his cheek, blood saturating his garments, blood gathered in a pool beneath. There is one red word in the text that rouses up our attention and calls back that scene: “The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.”
The blood of the cross was royal blood. Through our democratic preferences, we may in theory disregard royal pretensions; yet when wTe see the son of a king our liveliest interest is aroused. Let the Prince of Wales, or the Prince Imperial of Prance, even in his broken fortunes, go through our streets, and all the city would turn out to look. It is called ‘an honor to have in one’s veins the blood of the house of Stuart, or of the house of Hapsburg. Is it nothing when I point you to-night to the outpouring blood of the King of the Universe?
In England the name of Henry was so great that its honors wTere divided among different reigns. It was Henry the First, and Henry the Second, and Henry the Third, and Henry the Fourth, and Henry the Fifth. In France the name of Louis was so favorably regarded that it was Louis the First, Louis the Second, Louis the Third, and so on. But this King of whom I speak was Christ the First, Christ the Last, and Christ the Only. He reigned before the Czar mounted the throne of Kussia, or the throne of Austria was lifted, “King Eternal, Immortal.” Through the indulgences of the royal family, the physical life degenerates, and some of the kings have been almost imbecile, and their bodies weak, and their blood thin and watery; but the crimson life that flowed upon Calvary had in it the health of the immortal God.
A king dying! You remember, when the last Czar of Russia was in his fatal sickness, that bulletins were every hour dispatched from the palace, saying, “The king is better,” or “The king is worse,” or “The king is delirious,” or “The king rested easier through the night,” or “The king is dying,” and “The king is dead.” The bells tolled it, the flags signaled it, the telegraphs flashed it. Tell it now to all the earth and to all the heavens — Jesus, our King, is sick with his last sickness. Let couriers carry the swift dispatch. His pains are worse; he is breathing a last groan; through his body quivers the last anguish; the King is dying; the Kino is dead! Ye who come round about the cross, look out how you tread in what you see beneath. It is royal blood. It is said that the Unitarians make too much of the humanity of Christ. I respond that we make too little. If some Ro¬ man surgeon, standing under the cross, had caught one drop of the blood on his hand and analyzed it, it would have been found to have the same plasma, the same disk, the same fibrin, the same albumen. It was unmistakably human blood. It is a man that hangs there. His bones are of the same material as ours. His nerves are sensitive like ours. If it were an angel being despoiled I would not feel it so much, for it belongs to a different order of beings. But my Savior is a man, and my whole sympathy is aroused. I can imagine how the spikes felt — how hot the temples burned — what deathly sickness seized his heart — how mountain, and city, and mob swam away from his dying vision — something of the meaning of that cry for help that makes the blood of all the ages curdle with horror: “My God! my God! why hast thou forsaken me?”
I go still farther, and say it was a brother’s blood. If you saw an entire stranger maltreated, and his life oozing away on the pavement, you would feel indignant; but if, coming along the street, you saw a company of villains beating out the life of your own brother, the sight of his blood would make you mad. You would bound into the affray. At the peril of losing your own life, you would rush in, saying, “You vagabonds! this is my brother. I dare you to touch him again P You would fight until you fell dead beside him. That is your brother, maltreated on the cross. They spit on him, and slapped him in the face. How do you feel about that? What are your emotions as you hear the falling of the blood upon the leaves beneath — drip, drip, drip? Do you not feel as though, with supernatural power, you could rush upon the mob? Do you not feel as if, stand¬ ing close, with your back against him, and with one good sword in your hand, and a cry to God for help, you could hew down the desperadoes that assailed him? But you can not help. The blood rushes from the victim, and there he hangs — your dead brother. What is wor&e — shall I tell it? — you slew him! I charge it, first upon myself, and then upon all ye who hear me to-night, the awful crime of fratricide. His blood is on our hands. Bring me a laver, quick! that I may wash it off. Show me the pool where I may be cleansed of the terrible stain. Here it is. I have found it. It is the fountain opened for all sin; and though sin were as scarlet, it shall be as snow.
It was substitutionary blood. Our sins cried to heaven for vengeance. Some one must die. Shall it be us or Christ? “Let it be me,”’ said Jesus. You were draft-TEE RED WORD.
ed for the last war, and some one took your place. You were in debt; not being able to meet the obligation, some one paid it. You can easily understand how Christ went in to fight our battles and to pay our debts. The debt is canceled; the captives are released; the shackles are broken; the prison is opened. Blood paid the price; blood washed away the pollution; blood sealed the agree¬ ment. The blood of Paul, that soaked the dust of the guillotine; the blood of Hugh Latimer, that simmered in the fire; the blood of the high-souled martyrs, that reddened the mouths of the lions in the Coliseum, have just as much worth to your soul as the blood of Christ, unless you take this last as expiatory, and feel the truth that “the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin.”
Come, then, and get your sins pardoned. I do not ask you to come to a private confessional, or to whisper into my ears your offenses, but, sitting where you are, to accept this moment the blood-cleansing. First, for that old sin. Do you ask, “What sin do you mean?” I mean that old sin that you committed years ago. It may have bee’n two years, ten years, or twenty years. You know when it was. I think that old sins are like other debts — they increase by having the interest added on. They are tenfold greater now, and have been multiplied by all of your opportunities of having them pardoned. Does that old sin present its dun at the door of your soul to-night? Can you not pay it? Does it threaten to carry you off to jail? Does it propose to sell you out? Better get together all your bonds and mortgages, and certificates of stocks, and United States securities. Come, let me count them! — not enough. Bring all the clever things you have ever done. Let me count them! — not enough.
Bring all that you possess. You say, “I have brought every thing!” Alas! that you can not meet the obligation. You must die! “No! no! no!” says a voice from heaven. The blood of Jesus Christ, the royal blood, the human blood, the expiatory blood, cleanseth from all sin. “What! is that old sin gone V9 Yes, I heard it topple over and plash into the depths of the sea. It sinks like lead. There is no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus.
Circumstances aggravate sins. If a child does wrong, not wittingly, you excuse it; but wThen we do wrong, we know it. Every time a sin is committed, conscience tolls a funeral bell. We may laugh, and pretend not to hear it, but hear it we must. Our sins are against warnings and reproofs, and doubly aggravated. This man’s sins are more heinous than the transgressions of that man, because he had a better bringing up. Here is a man who, twenty years ago, kneeled at a Methodist altar. He went a while on the road to heaven, but then got tired, and put off in another direction. Where he has been since he began to backslide, he and his God only know. This I do know, he is wretchedly unhappy. There is no such nest of scorpions this side of hell as the heart of the backslider. He is the last man that ever returns. The publicans and the harlots come in before him. Where, oh man! is that family altar that you once lifted? Where is the closet of prayer that you once frequented? Are you as happy now as you used to be? Your common sense teaches you that the man who came to Christ, and heard the full expression of God’s love, and then went away to betray the Lord, must drink the bitterest gall, and the thunders that at last drive him
away will roll and crash with all the accumulated wrath of God omnipotent; and yet to-night my text sweeps a circle of pardon around all these accumulated sins. Fire may not be able to burn them out; hoofs may not be able to trample them out; hammers may not be able to pound them out; but here is blood that will wash them out. Come! come! I take you with my right hand, while with my left I catch the warm blood that gushes from the heart of Christ and pour it over your soul, and, lo! the blackness of your sin is gone forever. O that the red hand of Christ to-night would rub all our sins away!
But you say, “These things are not appropriate to me, for I am a moral man,” How about your thoughts? You see my right hand, and you see my left hand, and one just as plainly as the other. So with the sin of the heart and the sin of the life — one is just as plain in God’s sight as the other. You have not been guilty of murder, you say. Are you sure about that? Have you ever hated any body? Then you are a murderer. (1 John iii., 15): “Whoso hateth his brother is a murderer.” You say you have never been guilty of theft. Are you sure about that? I acknowledge you have never taken any thing from your fellow-man; but have you not taken days and hours that belonged to God for your owrn purposes? If it is wrong to steal from a man, it is more wicked to rob God.
If I could marshal before you all the sins of the best man in this house to-night, this whole audience would shriek out with horror. Sins against God and man; sins against Sabbaths and sacraments; sins against body and soul; sins against light and knowledge; sins against Sinai and Calvary; sins against the grave and the resurrection; sins against the judgment; sins against the throne of God and the mansions of glory. I blow the trumpet to-night, and call up all the sins of your past life. I wave them here from the past. I stamp them up from beneath — gather them into companies of hundreds; into regiments of thousands; into battalions of ten thousands. We have a host vaster than that of Xerxes. Let the largest of the hundred sins be captain over the company. Let the largest of the thousand iniquities be colonel over the regiment. Let the swarthiest transgression of your lifetime be general over all the host. Together let them wheel, and march, and fire. How the couriers of death dash up and down the line! How the great batteries of woe belch forth the sulphurous smoke of hell, and boom with the cannonading of eternal destruction! The host of thy sins innumerable, marching on to capture thy soul. One man against a million armed iniquities. Who can go forth and meet them? We must fall back and fall down. Are there no allies to help? In all the round of God’s universe, is there no one to take our part?
Arise, ye seas, and whelm the host! Strike, ye lightnings, and consume the foe!
But the wave strikes the beach, and falls back crying “No help in me!” The lightning sheathes itself in the black scabbard of the midnight cloud, and says “No help in me!” But yonder I see a white horse in hot haste coming this way. Make room for the courier. He swings his sword. Good news! good news! The Captain of Salvation comes to the rescue. Fall back, my sins! fall back, my sorrows! Allies of light and love, to arms! to arms! The host of our sins scatter in defeat, and our
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delivered soul shouts “Victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” At the sea-shore you go down on the beach, and into the waters, hand in hand, to bathe. None but those who have tried it know the exhilaration. I would to-night that we might all join hands, and go down by scores, and by hundreds, and by thousands, to bathe in the great sea of God’s forgiveness. Let us not stand on the margin and paddle the ripples with our feet, but plunge in until the waves go over our heads, and we come up again washed clean from all our sins. Cry mightily, that the blood of the Cross may avail for ytou. If it cleanse you not, it will plead against you; and all those gaping wounds of Christ, through an unknown eternity, will haunt your soul with the thought of what you might have been. Oh! take your feet out of your brother’s blood. Go not down, condemned at last, for fratricide, and regicide, and Deicide. Better for thee that Calvary had never borne its burden, and the lips of Christ had never addressed thee in invitation, if, reject¬ ing all, thou goest into eternal desolation, thy hands and feet bedabbled with the blood of the Son of God.
Oh ye dying but immortal men! ye blood - bought, judgment-bound hearers! repent, and believe, and hear, and live! “How shall we escape if we neglect so great
salvation 2”