Or Spurgeon said on this subject, I cannot say anything new upon the subject, neither can I put these old faults into new words. I would only spoil them and be making a fool of myself by trying to make a display of myself and my own powers instead. of the precious blood. Well, if Spurgeon felt that way, I certainly do feel that way. At least he had some abilities and powers. And in comparison to him, I feel, well, what can I say on this subject? How can a man like me speak on the preciousness of the blood of Christ? But that is what I, God helping me, will do this evening, is to convey to you something of the preciousness of the blood of Christ. Now, I grant you, living in the 21st century as we do, that talking about blood makes you sound a little bit strange. You ever stop and think about that? You go on the streets, you preach in open air, which I have done, and you start speaking about the blood of Christ, and you could forgive an unbeliever who's never been into a church to think, this all sounds a bit dodgy, this all sounds a bit weird, it sounds a bit like a cult. Blood? Because we're living in a day where blood is not really something that's talked about, but in Paul's day, even all the pagan religions, all societies, everything that they did involved blood, shedding of blood. We don't live in that kind of world. Christians in the past have been called cannibals, did you know that? And of course, if you're Roman Catholic and believe in the false teaching of transubstantiation, where you literally believe the wine becomes the blood and the bread becomes the body, well, you could say that insult has some degree of truth to it. If you were to go into the town centre this evening and say, what is the most precious thing to you, I would be quite happy if I was betting a man, I'm not a betting man, it's sinful to be a betting man, but if I was a betting man, I'd be quite confident to place a substantial amount of money that you would not get one person that would say to you, the blood of Christ. And probably not even your own blood. Blood is precious, especially Christ's blood. What makes something precious? Well, it's something's used to you, isn't it, really? Question, would you be quite happy to find a bag of gold in your car, underneath your car? Probably most of you would. You could do a lot with some gold, couldn't you? Get a full private healthcare. That would be pretty helpful for this particular man, wouldn't it? And more waiting to get through to the doctors. Could sort out your retirement plans, pay off your mortgage. But how about this? Suppose you were in the desert. You've got hours to live, dehydrated, thirsty, dying, expiring, and you find a bag of gold. Is that gonna be much help to you there? But you find water. Water's gonna be precious. What makes something precious is its value to you. My wife is precious to me because she's indispensable to me. No one could replace my dear wife. What sense can blood be precious? Well, just think about it at a very basic level. You need your blood to live. My father, when I was three years old, collapsed in a hospital, cried out for help, and they found out he'd lost four pints of blood. And he was losing it fast, he had a neglected stomach ulcer that had been overlooked, and he needed a blood transfusion immediately. Blood was precious to him. And of course, he couldn't just have any old blood, could he? He had to have the right type of blood. Someone had given blood that was most needed by my father. Blood is precious. If you bleed out, you die. And we read here that the blood of Christ is precious, says Peter. And this is central to the Christian conviction, the gospel message. If you were to homework, go through your hymn book and count how many hymns mention the preciousness of Christ's blood. Quote a few. Here is love, vast as the ocean, loving kindness as the flood, when the prince of life, our ransom, shed for us his precious blood. Dear dying lamb, thy precious blood shall never lose its power. Isn't this a precious truth? Till all the ransomed church of God be saved to sin no more. That's when there is a fountain filled with blood. There is nothing, therefore, so precious as the blood of Christ, because there is nothing that you or I need more than the blood of Christ. Without the blood of Christ we are lost and without God and are heading to the most miserable eternity that we can't even begin to fathom in our mind's eye because we have no conception of the severity of sin before good and holy God. Millions and millions and millions of souls pre-Christ coming and post-Christ coming have banked their eternity on the blood of Jesus Christ. The saints of old before Christ were looking to his great sacrifice, and of course we look back to his accomplished sacrifice. As Abel's blood cries out vengeance on Cain, Christ's blood cries out mercy on sinners. Now Spurgeon tells a story of how someone came to discover the preciousness of Christ's blood, and he heard a true story of two soldiers on the island of Gibraltar, that great rocky fortress. And there were lots of tunnels on Gibraltar, and if you shout at one side, the noise can be projected through quite a long way to people on the other side. And there were two soldiers on either side of a particular tunnel in Gibraltar. And one of them was a Christian, and he was meditating on this exact text, The Preciousness of Jesus Christ. He was chewing it over in his mind. He kept restating the verse and thinking upon it, saying it again, thinking upon it. And this other man was at the other side of Gibraltar. And he was in great distress of soul. He was under deep conviction of sin. He felt a sense of hopelessness within. He felt completely undone before God, and he wondered if he was to die in battle, where he would go. He could not find peace. He could not find a rock to stand on. He could not find a confidence before God. And he heard this Christian man, this Christian soldier, saying, the blood of Christ, or as it says here in the text, with the precious blood of Christ. And the Holy Spirit sealed that to his soul. Ah, that's the secret. It's by the blood. That is where my confidence before God must be, because Christ shed his blood for me. And I pray tonight some of us would have, either for the first time or for the thousandth time, a profound sense of the preciousness of the blood of Christ for our souls. Well, in order to consider that then, firstly, see with me the value of blood generally. The value of blood generally. In order to see why Christ's blood is precious, we need to think about the fact that blood is precious in and of itself. Blood is a powerful substance, and I'm sorry, I hope none of you pass out by me keep talking about blood this evening. But the very fact that when some of us have had my wife, she was in the first day course at our church and she never finished it because she passed out at the talk of blood. So I'm aware that for some people this is very difficult. But that very reality tells you something about blood. Blood produces, when we see it, deep emotions, deep feelings. There are soldiers, or retired soldiers, who 50, 60 years after fighting in a war have nightmares about the sight of men all around them bleeding to death. Blood evokes tremendous feeling. Why? Because it's not an inconsequential reality. I remember the first time when I was at secondary school, we had to work for homework, watch that war film, Saving Private Ryan. And the first time I ever got to understand something of the carnage that men experienced on the beaches of Normandy, to see so many people lying in pools of blood, some blood so deep that it would be higher than your boot. I came to see that blood is a serious thing. Every remembrance Sunday, we remember those who gave their lives, but we might as well just say it for what it is, they gave their blood. Because a man's life is his blood. There is nothing you can give more precious than your blood. That's the ultimate, to give your blood. And the scriptures themselves tell us the significance of blood. For example, in Leviticus 17, verse 11, we read, for the life of the flesh is in the blood. There's a mysterious connection between our very souls, our very life, and our blood. When we bleed out, our souls leave our bodies. Or if your soul leaves your body before you bleed out, your blood will drain from your body. Blood is the mysterious property God has given us which unites the body and the soul together. As the blood is pumped around our bodies, our souls live in our bodies. And that's why Leviticus says, for the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls. Because the point there is, a soul must be given for a soul. Sin against God is no light matter. You sin with your body and soul, you will pay with your body and soul, and therefore there must be a substitution. Blood must be shed. if you're to be cleansed and forgiven. It was, of course, as Christ was bleeding out, that he said, into thy hands, I commit my spirit. Hebrews 9.22 says, according to the law, almost all things are purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood, there is no remission, no forgiveness, no cancelling of our sin. Sin is committed by the soul and therefore the soul must pay. And so the shedding of the blood points to the need for there to be a substitution to bring us back to God. Furthermore, the importance of blood in the scriptures is seen by the restrictions on eating things that contain blood, you know. And we could turn to various scriptures for that. We don't need to this evening. Because what the point there was is God wants people to understand the preciousness of blood. It's no light thing. It's serious blood. It's precious. Because obviously, ultimately, he wants them to value the blood of Christ when it is shed. And of course, you remember when Noah came off the ark, God told him about capital punishment. If a man sheds the blood of another man, I will acquire his blood. to be shed. Blood is a precious, precious thing. And this is also seen by the unease people have in shedding blood. You remember when Pilate was persuaded of the innocence of Christ? And he was being pressured hard by the Jewish peoples to put him to death. What did he say in the end when he realised that his popularity was at stake here? What did he say? He took the water and washed his hands before the multitude, saying, I am innocent of the blood of this just person. You see to it. And what did the crowds cry? His blood be upon us and upon our children. He trembled at the thought of taking blood. because he understood this is the blood and the soul are linked and once you shed a man's blood, his soul goes to be with God. Even Judas, in Matthew 27, trembled and took his own life over the fact that he was guilty of innocent blood. In Matthew 27, verse four to five, we read, I have sinned in that I have betrayed innocent blood. And they said, what is that to us? See thou to that. And he cast down the pieces of silver in the temple and departed and went and hanged himself. Blood is precious. It's precious to God. In Psalm 72, Solomon, and you see again the relationship in this Psalm between blood and the soul. Psalm 72, Solomon says in verses, verse 13, he will save the souls of the needy, he will redeem their souls from deceit and violence. Look at the end of verse 14. Precious shall be their blood in his sight. He will save the soul. Precious shall be their blood. Again, you see that relationship between the soul and the blood. One stands for the other. So we've considered then the preciousness of blood more generally, but let us now secondly see the value of Christ's blood more specifically. And the first thing I want you to think about is that his blood is divine blood. And there is a profound mystery to this, but it's so important we grasp this. Question, can God, as to his divine nature, die? No. He's immortal, invisible, God only wise. Question, it's not a trick one. Did God die on the cross? I remember being in a seminary class when they asked that question and it was like, stand over there if you think he did, stand over there if he didn't. And you were a bit like really panicky, you know. But the answer is yes, he did. Not as to his divine nature, but we believe in a complete union between the divine nature and the humanity of Jesus Christ. He was one person. And Jesus, the person, the Son of God, died on the cross. Now, the divine nature of the Son of God didn't die, but Jesus died. And therefore, he was so God that when he died, it has been said, for example, in Acts 20, that the blood of Christ is the blood of God. That God purchased the church, it says in Acts 20, with his blood. This is divine blood because it belongs to the Son of God. Now I suppose you had, you needed an organ replacement, you needed a heart, you had a heart, your heart's failing, it's not gonna last long. And the only match for your heart in the whole of the country, indeed the whole world, was King Charles. How many of you think King Charles is gonna be willing to give his heart to you? Not likely. He's the king. Who are you? It's no offence, but who are you compared to the king? Who am I? We're talking here about God, the one you've daily provoked to his face, the one you have grieved with every even impulse that is unholy. The God who sees the very depths of your being and sees all the motives of your heart and sees that every inclination is wholly inclined to what is evil and sinful. That even when you do good, it is tainted with sin. That even when I preach, there is sin even in my mouth. As Isaiah says, I am a man of unclean lips and I dwell among a people of unclean lips. We are wholly defiled in body and soul. It is against him that we've sinned. He is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity. And yet the King of Kings, the one that the angels veiled their faces from, he gave his blood for every trembling sinner who calls on him. You can't even fathom that. God gave his blood for you. Now imagine you're in the hospital and you're dying and you need that heart and King Charles calls you and says, it's all right. I've agreed for them to take my heart. You'd be speechless. You wouldn't be able to believe it. BBC News, they'd get their message to say this is going on, they'd be like, what's going on? People would be trying to talk him out of it. You can't do this, you're the king. What is that person? The world won't notice they've gone, but if you go... The king of kings bleeds to death, suffers the wrath of an holy and infuriated god that you and I deserve. It's divine blood. and it's precious blood. Friends, some people really get themselves into a little bit of a tizz about believing that Christ died. Did he die for me? But you don't need to answer that question. He died for sinners, and his death, his blood will be effectual and sufficient for any sinner who comes. I believe with all of my heart, as does your pastor, I'm sure, in a limited, definite atonement. Christ died for his sheep, and they're known to him. He knows his sheep. But I don't need to have a message from heaven to say, I am a sheep that he died for. I just need to look unto him and see that he shed his blood for every sinner who comes. So I'm gonna go, I'm gonna come, and I know his blood will be effectual. And friends, let me put it like this. His blood is so, because it's divine blood, it is therefore of infinite value. And so therefore, let's just for argument's sake say Christ died for 10 billion people. More than that I believe, but let's for argument's sake say he died for 10 billion people. Friends, if suddenly God changed his mind at the last minute and said actually I want to up that number to 100 billion, friends, he would have had to have done nothing more than he did. His blood is enough for an infinite number of souls. His blood is enough for you because it is divine blood. And whatever is of God is greater than what is of man. Your sins are not greater than the value of Christ's blood. Whatever your debts are, whatever offences you have incurred, whatever the bill of offences that you, penalty that you owe God, His blood can cancel everything in times infinity. There's enough value in Christ's blood to cover the bill of your debt before God. He can cancel it in a moment. Secondly, it's holy blood. Our text says, we've been redeemed by the precious blood of Christ as of a lamb without blemish and without spot. You know that comes from the Passover, don't you? In Exodus 12, we read of the institution of the Passover Speaking unto all the congregation, this is verse three, of Israel saying, in the tenth day of this month, they shall take to them every man a lamb, according to the house of their fathers, a lamb for a house. And look at verse five, your lamb shall be without blemish. By mail of the first year, you shall take it out from the sheep. And then verse seven, they shall take of the blood and strike it on two side posts and on the upper door post of the houses wherein they shall eat of it. Then look at verse 12. I will pass through the land of Egypt this night, and I will smite all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast, and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment. I am the Lord, and 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. It's holy blood. In other words, God would not punish anyone that is holy. because he is holy. But to be covered in the blood of the Lamb, to be cleansed by his blood, leaves you completely holy in his sight. Only an innocent man can substitute himself in the place of a guilty man. If a man is on death row, and another man is on death row, that man can't say, well, I'll pay for your penalty. He's already got his own penalty to bear, because he was holy. He bore our sins justly. Thirdly, then, see with me the power of Christ's blood. And let's read Leviticus 17, verse 11 again. For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls. For it is the blood that maketh an atonement for your souls. The Lord says to Adam, the day you eat of the tree, you die. The wages of sin is death, physical death, and then that frightening fact of the second death. where there is an eternal, never-ending, conscious destruction of the soul that will be without end for any soul who is not in Christ. And yet we read that the blood was given as an atonement. for the soul, an atonement, to atone for wrongdoing. If you atone for some of these mistakes, it means they've done something wrong, and you're atoning for them, you're putting it right. Christ's blood puts us right. But here's the riddle, here's the problem. In Proverbs 17, verse five, we're told it is an abomination, I'm paraphrasing, it is an abomination for God to condemn the innocent and justify the wicked. Right? So was what God did to the Son of God what the Father did to him by laying our sins on his shoulder? Punishing an innocent man, technically according to Proverbs 17, that's an abomination. But friends, it wasn't an abomination because in the sight of God he wasn't innocent. by a weird, I say weird, that's a poor word, by a mystical union. You and I, if you're in Christ, if you're repenting and believing in Christ, or if you're going to repent and believe in Christ, we appeared in him. And so actually, he was not himself a sinner, but he became in the sight of God as a sinner. He was numbered with the transgressors, and when God the Father looked at His Son on Calvary's cross, He saw, because of our sins by imputation to Him, He saw the most vile, despicable, unrighteous, unholy creature that has ever lived. Think of the sins that we're being atoned for. Harlotry, idolatry, homosexuality, immorality, murder, theft, covetousness, of a number of people that no man can number. And I've really just mentioned the external sins there, not the sins of the heart, the perversity of our own hearts and ways. And so in many respects, we can say Christ was guilty on the cross. Not because of any sins of his own. He was guilty because of our sins on his account. It's like the bill was given to him. And nothing else will atone for our sins. Imagine a parent grieving the loss of a brutally murdered child, and the criminal says, sorry a thousand times, and I will do anything. I'll put it right. I'll do community service. I will spend my whole life now being righteous friends. Will that satisfy the grieved parent? They must die. They must spill their blood. Only then will justice be met. And we have grieved God by a thousand falls. We have had contempt for him, ingratitude towards him. The Bible says whatever does not proceed of faith is sin. But love consists in this, and I'm reading a paraphrased translation just for simplicity at this particular point. Love consists in this, not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. Our version would say propitiation. for our sins. It's atoning blood. Secondly, it's redeeming blood. Imagine a family who have fallen on hard times. And this used to be very common in ancient societies. You read the Jewish laws in Deuteronomy, you see this. When people fell on hard times and they had debts they could not pay, what would they do? Sell themselves. They'd sell themselves into slavery. And the only way they could be redeemed was for someone else to redeem them. But of course, the only way we can be redeemed before God is for someone else to redeem us. And that redemption is the penalty of sin. And we read in Galatians chapter three and verse 13, precious words, Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law. Being made a curse for us, for it is written, cursed is everyone that hangs on the tree. So it's a mind-blowing thing to think Christ, the Son of God, was literally cursed. Cut off from God. Bearing all, you know, we, question, do you find it weary living in a cursed world? Oh, isn't it? But you see, we live in a cursed world that's tinged with God's common grace and mercy. And if you're a Christian, you also have God's special grace. By His mercies you're not consumed, so that with the burdens of living in a cursed world, death, disease, decay, suffering, you also have the presence of God and His Holy Spirit and His Word. Christ endured the curse completely without any comfort. Because friends, you know what hell is? Hell is giving up the sinner to the conclusion of their choice, which is to endure and experience unrelenting, unrestrained evil without any restraining grace of God. And so what you will have in hell is people who have been evil being more evil. They will be gnashing their teeth. They will still hate God. They will still be unrighteous. And Christ endured hell compressed into three short hours on the cross to redeem us. It's also cleansing blood, isn't it? Sin defiles us. I remember once in a church I used to minister in, there was a dear chap who used to come very regularly to our services to worship, but he often turned up late. And I could smell him from the moment he opened the door from the pulpit. He stank. He stank of sweat, urine. It was overpowering, so much so that people that sat near him struggled to even listen to a word I was saying. And I remember thinking to myself, to my shame, and this once again just shows you how unlike God my heart is, thinking, if he came to my front door, would I even let him in? Would I even want him to sit on my sofa with his blood and urine stained trousers? On another occasion, there was a lady I used to visit from time to time, whose flat completely smelt. There were fleas on the carpet. The sofa had evidence of faeces and urine, and she said, sit down, would you like a drink? And I was thinking, no way, Jose. Not if this flat's a reflection of your dishes and your cups and your mugs. I had my suit on, and I left her flat. I could smell it in my clothes. I got back, I had a shower, I could still smell it on my skins. I washed my jacket and it still smelt. I heard a preacher once talk about again visiting an old lady who had dirty cutlery everywhere and she brought him out a cup of tea and he saw all the food floating in this cup. And he looked at it, and suddenly it flashed in his mind, the cup that Christ had in his hands. If you saw even in my heart as one snapshot of a sinner, you would be horrified at what you see. But imagine what it must be like for Christ to bear the defilement in the sight of his Father, whom he's only known the approval of and the praise of, to endure all the holy displeasure that God has been storing since the foundation of the world for sinners against himself. We are all as an unclean thing, Isaiah says. Job says, behold, I am vile, I abhor myself. Friends, his blood cleanses from all sin. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to cleanse us from all sin, and he casts our sins into the sea of his forgetfulness, and as it's been said, and puts a sign up saying, no fishing. And I think this is particularly what we need to remind ourselves of as believers, because I really struggle to believe that I can be cleansed from the sins I've committed as a believer, and in my case, as a pastor. But when he gave himself for me, He gave himself for me with a complete knowledge of what I am. He gave, he shed his blood for my sins past, present, and future. The only unforgiven sin is unconfessed sin. And even then, for the Christian, we don't know all the sins that we are to confess. And his blood therefore covers and pays for it all. By unconfessed sin that's not forgiven, I mean sin that we know we've committed but haven't confessed. Some of us have things we've done, and intellectually we know He's forgiven us, but we can't forgive ourselves, we can't let it go. Beloved, if God has forgiven you, forgive yourself, let it go. You've been washed. 1 Corinthians 6 says, thieves, covetous, drunkards, revilers, extortioners, will not inherit the kingdom of God, and such were some of you, but ye are washed, ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of our Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God. You are washed clean. Those sins of youth, those perverse faults, they've been washed. God has forgiven them. He's removed them as far as the east is from the west. He's cast your sins into the depths of his sea. Christ's blood makes us so clean that he actually enjoys our company. Unlike when I went into those flats, I didn't want to be there. He doesn't see it anymore. We are righteous in him. You want to know how God feels about you, Christian? How he feels about this church? Psalm of Solomon 4 verse 7, which is an allegory of Christ and his church, says, You are all fair, my love, and there is no spot. It's too good to be true that he sees us like that because we're so acquainted with our own heart. That is how God views you, Christian. If you had come to him, that's what you would know. Complete cleansing and washing. His blood is also preserving blood. There is a day coming, beloved, when Christ is gonna appear in all his matchless splendour and glory, and he is going to shake the universe. And for many who do not know Christ, they're going to cry to the rocks to fall on them. And not even the rocks will cover them from the wrath of the Lamb. What will be your confidence in that day? It will be His blood. Rock of ages, cleft from me, let me hide myself in thee. Let the water and the blood be of sin the double cure. The blood of Passover, the blood on the door of the lintel which protected and preserved every house that was sheltered in his blood. His blood will shelter you from the wrath. It will be the only hiding place, his blood. It will be the only thing which God sees and satisfies him, dealt with, paid for. His blood will preserve you in this life when you're in need, when you have practical needs, material needs. What gives you your confidence? God will meet all your needs according to his riches in Christ Jesus because he gave his precious blood for you. and you're too important to neglect, he will give you all that you need for life and godliness in this world. When you're backstidden and you've drifted far, you've lost your way, how do you know you're welcome back? Because he sees the blood. Five bleeding wounds he bears, received on Calvary. They pour effectual prayers, they strongly plead for me. Forgive him, O forgive, they cry, forgive him, O forgive, they cry, nor let that ransomed sinner die. His blood's transforming blood. They will look upon him whom they have pierced, Zechariah 12 verse 10 says, and they will mourn. When we look upon him, it changes our lives. We become debtors to grace. We become Christ's. He purchased me. I'm no longer my own. My life is not my own. My possessions are not my own. My time is not my own. My family is not my own. I am his. He bought me and we bow before him and we cast up ourselves before him and we say, what does thou sayest to thy servant? I am thine. And we say, use me. It transforms the way we view sin. How can we not hate the sins that made thee mourn, Kalpas says. We will pant from our hearts, oh, for a closer walk with Jesus, oh, for a calm and heavenly frame. And the world, why would we love the world? Look at the cross, see what the world did to the Son of God, see what religion did, see what the pagans did, see the anti-Christ, anti-God world that we still live in. It would crucify him all over again if it had him physically in this world. How can we love this world? How can we cling to this world? This world is under the judgment of God and it's passing away. It transforms the way we view God. We no longer view him as a taskmaster, we no longer view him as a call guard, and when we have bitter providences, when he slays us, when he smites us, when he chastises us, when he hides his face from us, we can say, because we've seen what he did for us on the cross, we can say, though he slay me, yet I will praise him, because whatever I'm experiencing now, it is less than I deserve. It transforms you, the blood of Christ. His blood is preaching blood. It calls out and says, why will you die? Why will you perish? I do not delight in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their way and live. His blood is proclaimed to all the world. Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. His blood is overcoming blood. I'm coming to close now. Revelation 12, verse 11 we read. And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb. By the word of their testimony, and they loved not their lives unto death. Are you fearful of death, Christian? I don't say this to scold you if you are, because I am too, but we shouldn't be. O death, where is thy sting? Everything that is terrifying about death has been taken by Christ. The Christian doesn't really die. Physically we die, but that's why you can go look at the Puritan tombstones and they will say things like, asleep in Jesus. Death is but ushering us into the presence of the one whom your soul loves. We do not fear the future if we experience his blood in our life. Because we know that we are his jewels. that we are his precious possession, that we are the apple of his eye. He paid such a price for you, do you think he will drop the ball concerning you? And you have something precious, you don't let it out of your sight, do you? You know, I remember going to a football game with my oldest son, and going to Stamford Bridge, and the crowds were everywhere, and I said to him what my father said to me when he used to take me, son, if we get lost, meet me by the Peter Osgood statue. But the point was, I had my eyes on him all the time, every move. I was constantly watching him, making sure he was near me, because he's precious to me. There were many other children there, and if I saw them in need, I would interpose myself for them, for sure. But they're not my own precious child. This was my child, and he was my sole preoccupation. I hardly watched the football, because I was conscious of him. We are his people, he paid, he spilled his blood, he ever lived before God the Father, he bears our names on his hands, we're graven on his heart, he pleads and intercedes for us friends. You know that precious text, he lives to make intercession. You know, what is Christ doing now? He's praying for you. If we would hear Christ pray for us, we would not worry about anything. We don't fear men's threats, Christians, I'm speaking realistically to you here, not to terrify you. I'm sure you know this anyway, and we're burying your head in the sand if you don't. Persecution's coming. And it's the job of pastors to prepare their people. And as God brings revival, the way, I'm just saying it's coming on the basis of the trajectory that we're on. I don't know the future, of course I don't. And we will be threatened by men. But do you remember what happened to the Saul of Tarsus on his way to gather up saints at Damascus? Saul, why do you persecute me? The church, me, we are his church, we are his people. We should more not fear for ourselves, but fear for them who would oppose us. We should be able to look our enemies in the face, not with fear, but with concern, and compassion, and love, and with Jesus, and with Stephen, say, Father, forgive them, they know not what they do, because we know that we're safe when Jesus comes, but we're worried for their souls. Thinking upon the blood of Christ defeats fear. And the last thing I wanted to mention was it's free blood. It's not cheap. His blood is costly. It cost him. Salvation is costly at the point of purchase, but it is free at the point of reception. He paid the price that you might be saved freely. You say, what do I bring? Bring a broken heart. Bring a repentant heart. Bring a believing heart. but I don't know if I believe enough. I don't know if I've repented enough. How much repentance is enough? How will you know when enough is enough? How much belief is enough? How will you know when you've got enough faith? Friends, the only faith and repentance that you need is that which enables you to say, I need thee, Lord. You say, Lord, I'm as sincere as a sincere sinner can be. You say, but what if there's unbelief mixed with belief? Lord, I believe, help my unbelief. He even had to die for the imperfections in your belief, for the unbelief mixed with belief. That's the point, isn't it? Only he's good enough. Only his faith was good enough. Only his obedience was good enough. You only need enough repentance and faith that brings you to him. I often like to think of myself as the woman who had bleeding. I know it sounds a bit dodgy in this day and age, thinking of myself as a woman, but I like to put myself in her shoes. And I think to myself, when I lack assurance, and there have been many times when I do, if I was her, and I heard that Jesus was in the village, would I go? Would I do whatever it took just to lay a hold of him? And I know I can say yes. I just, I'd have to be near him, I'd have to cling to him. Oh, you know how he dealt with her. If you have enough faith that makes you think, I know I want him, then I preach a savior to you who says I shed my blood for you. And all you reformed guys who are getting a bit concerned about me there and saying, are you being a bit, listen. Listen. This saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance. Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. Whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. I'm not undermining limited, definite atonement by saying, if you call on the Lord, you'll be saved. If you come to take his grace, you'll be saved. Come freely, come without money, come without price. He has prepared a banquet for your soul. Come freely, come sincerely, come needy, and he will not cast you away. Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sins of the world. Let's pray. Our God and our Father, we do thank you that Christ shed his precious blood and we would say it is precious blood indeed. I so sorry, Lord, that so often we treat it as a common thing. Every time we sin, we show hearts of contempt and ingratitude for what he did. Help us, Lord, to take it in, something of his preciousness and the price that he paid. And I pray for anyone here, even just one soul, who is sitting there in their sins. Give them that grace to see that you will not turn them away if they say, I have need of Christ. I have need of his accomplishments to be given to me. I have need of his blood to cleanse me. We thank you that it is his will that whoever believes on the Lord will be saved. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.