228. The Blood

A Sermon Delivered On Sunday Morning, December 12, 1858, By Pastor C. H. Spurgeon, At The Music Hall, Royal Surrey Gardens.

When I see the blood, I will pass over you. (Ex 12:13)

1. God’s people are always safe. “All the saints are in his hand;” and the hand of God is a place of safety, as well as a place of honour. Nothing can harm the man who has made his refuge in God. “You have given a command to save me,” said David; and every believing child of God may say the same. Plague, famine, war, tempest,—all these have received a command from God to save his people. Though the earth should rock beneath the feet of man, yet the Christian may stand fast, and though the heavens should be rolled up, and the firmament should pass away like a scroll that is burned by fervent heat, yet a Christian need not fear; God’s people shall be saved: if they cannot be saved under the heavens, they shall be saved in the heavens; if there is no safety for them in the time of trouble upon this solid earth, they shall be “caught up together with the Lord in the air, and so shall they ever be with the Lord,” and always safe.

2. Now Egypt was exposed to a terrible peril at this time according to the book of Exodus. Jehovah himself was about to march through the streets of all the cities of Egypt. It was not merely a destroying angel, but Jehovah himself; for thus it is written, “I will pass through the land of Egypt this night, and will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast.” No one less than the I AM, the great God, had vowed to “cut Rahab” with the sword of vengeance. Tremble, oh inhabitants of the earth, for God has come down among you, provoked, incensed, and at last awakened from his seeming sleep of patience. He has girded on his terrible sword, and he has come to strike you. Quake for fear, all you who have sin within you, for when God walks through the streets, sword in hand will he not strike all of you? But listen! the voice of covenant mercy speaks. God’s children are safe, even though an angry God is in the streets. Just as they are safe from the rod of the wicked, so they are safe from the sword of justice—safe always and for ever; for there was not a hair of the head of an Israelite that was so much as touched; Jehovah kept them safe beneath his wings. While he tore his enemies like a lion, yet he protected each one of his children. But, beloved, while this is always true, that God’s people are safe, there is another fact that is equally true, namely, that God’s people are only safe through the blood. The reason why God spares his people in the time of calamity is, because he sees the blood mark on their brow. What is the basis of that great truth, that all things work together for good to those who love God? The only reason that all things produce good for them is that they are bought with the precious blood of Christ. Therefore nothing can harm them because the blood is upon them, and every evil thing must pass them by. It was so that night in Egypt. God himself was abroad with his sword; but he spared them, because he saw the blood mark on the lintel and on the two side posts. And so it is with us. In the day when God in his fierce anger shall come forth from his dwelling place, to frighten the earth with terrors and to condemn the wicked, we shall be secure, if we are covered with the Saviour’s righteousness, and sprinkled with his blood, and found in him.

3. Do I hear someone say, that I am now coming to an old subject? This thought struck me when I was preparing for preaching, that I should have to tell you an old story over again; and just as I was thinking of that, I happened to read a book, I found an anecdote of Judson, the missionary to Burma. He had passed through unheard of hardships, and had performed dangerous exploits for his Master. He returned, after thirty years’ absence, to America. “Announced to address an assembly in a provincial town, and a vast concourse having gathered from great distances to hear him, he rose at the close of the usual service, and, as all eyes were fixed and every ear attentive, he spoke for about fifteen minutes, with much pathos, about the precious Saviour, of what he had done for us, and of what we owed to him; and he sat down, visibly affected.” “The people are very much disappointed,” said a friend to him on their way home; “they wonder why you did not talk about something else.” “Why, what did they want?” he replied: “I presented, to the best of my ability, the most interesting subject in the world.” “But they wanted something different—a story.” “Well, I am sure I gave them a story—the most thrilling one that can be conceived of.” “But they had heard it before. They wanted something new from a man who had just come from the ends of the earth.” “Then I am glad they have it to say, that a man coming from the ends of the earth had nothing better to tell than the wondrous story of the dying love of Jesus. My business is to preach the gospel of Christ; and when I can speak at all, I dare not trifle with my commission. When I looked upon those people today, and remembering where I should next meet them, how could I stand up and furnish food to vain curiosity—tickle their fancy with amusing stories, however decently strung together on a thread of religion? That is not what Christ meant by preaching the gospel. And then how could I hereafter meet the fearful charge, ‘I gave you one opportunity to tell them of ME; you spent it in describing your own adventures!’” So I thought. Well, if Judson told the old story after he had been away for thirty years, and could not find anything better, I will just go back to this old subject, which is always new and always fresh to us—the precious blood of Christ, by which we are saved.

4. First, then, the blood; secondly, its efficacy; thirdly, the one condition appended to it;—“When I see the blood;” and fourthly, the practical lesson.

5. I. First, then, THE BLOOD ITSELF. In the case of the Israelites it was the blood of the Paschal Lamb. In our case, beloved, it is the blood of the Lamb of God, which takes away the sins of the world.

6. 1. The blood of which I have solemnly to speak about this morning, is, first of all, the blood of a divinely appointed victim. Jesus Christ did not come into this world unappointed. He was sent here by his Father. This indeed is one of the underlying ground works of the Christian’s hope. We can rely upon Jesus Christ’s acceptance by his Father, because his Father ordained him to be our Saviour from before the foundation of the world. Sinner! when I preach to you the blood of Christ this morning, I am preaching something that is well pleasing to God; for God himself did choose Christ to be the Redeemer; he himself set him apart from before the foundation of the world, and he himself, even Jehovah the Father, laid upon him the iniquity of us all. The sacrifice of Christ is not brought to you without warrant; it is not something which Christ did surreptitiously and in secret; it was written in the great decree from all eternity, that he was the Lamb slain from before the foundation of the world. As he himself said, “Lo I come; in the volume of the book it is written about me, I delight to do your will oh God.” It is God’s will that the blood of Jesus should be shed. Jesus is God’s chosen Saviour for men; and here, when addressing the ungodly, here, I say, is one potent argument with them. Sinner! You may trust in Christ, that he is able to save you from the wrath of God, for God himself has appointed him to save.

7. 2. Christ Jesus, too, like the lamb, was not only a divinely appointed victim, but he was spotless. Had there been one sin in Christ, he would not have been capable of being our Saviour; but he was without spot or blemish—without original sin, without any practical transgression. In him was no sin, though he was “tempted in all points like as we are.” Here, again, is the reason why the blood is able to save, because it is the blood of an innocent victim, a victim the only reason for whose death lay in us, and not in himself. When the poor innocent lamb was put to death, by the head of the household in Egypt, I can imagine that thoughts like these ran through his mind. “Ah!” he would say, as he struck the knife into the lamb, “This poor creature dies, not for any guilt that it has ever had, but to show me that I am guilty, and that I deserved to die like this.” Turn, then, your eye to the cross, and see Jesus bleeding there and dying for you. Remember,

For sins not his own,
He died to atone;

Sin had no foothold in him and never troubled him. The prince of this world came and looked, but he said, “I have nothing in Christ; there is no room for me to plant my foot—no piece of corrupt ground, which I may call my own.” Oh sinner, the blood of Jesus is able to save you, because he was perfectly innocent himself, and “he died the just for the unjust, to bring us to God.”

8. But some will say, “How has the blood of Christ such power to save?” My reply is, not only because God appointed that blood, and because it was the blood of an innocent and spotless being, but because Christ himself was God. If Christ would be a mere man, my hearers, you could not be exhorted to trust him; even though he was ever so spotless and holy, there would be no efficacy in his blood to save; but Christ was “very God of very God;” the blood that Jesus shed was God-like blood. It was the blood of man, for he was man like ourselves; but the divinity was so allied with the manhood, that the blood derived efficacy from it. Can you imagine what must be the value of the blood of God’s own dear Son? No, you cannot put an estimate upon it that should so much as reach to a millionth part of its preciousness. I know you esteem that blood as beyond all price if you have been washed in it; but I know also that you do not esteem it enough. It was the wonder of angels that God should condescend to die; it will be the wonder of all wonders, the unceasing wonder of eternity, that God should become man to die. Oh! when we think that Christ was Creator of the world, and that on his all sustaining shoulders the universe rested, we cannot wonder that his death is mighty to redeem, and that his blood should cleanse from sin. Come here saints and sinners; gather in and crowd around the cross, and see this man, overcome with weakness, fainting, groaning, bleeding, and dying. This man is also “God over all, blessed for ever.” Is there not power to save? Is there not efficacy in blood like that? Can you imagine any stretch of sin which shall outdo the power of divinity—any height of iniquity that shall exceed the topless steeps of the divine? Can I conceive a depth of sin that shall be deeper than the Infinite? or a breadth of iniquity that shall be broader than the Godhead? Because he is divine, he is “able to save to the uttermost, those who come to God by him.” Divinity appointed, spotless, and divine, his blood is the blood by which you may escape the anger and the wrath of God.

9. 4. Once more; the blood of which we speak today, is blood once shed for many for the remission of sin. The paschal lamb was killed every year; but now Christ has appeared to take away sin by the offering up of himself, and there is now no more mention of sin, for Christ once and for all has put away sin, by the offering of himself. The Jew had the lamb every morning and every evening, for there was a continual mention of sin; the blood of the lamb could not take it away. The lamb availed for today, but there was the sin of tomorrow, what was to be done with that? Why, a fresh victim must bleed. But oh, my hearer, our greatest joy is, that the blood of Jesus has been once shed, and he has said, “It is finished.” There is no more need of the blood of bulls or of goats, or of any other sacrifice; that one sacrifice has “perfected for ever those who are sanctified.” Trembling sinner! come to the cross again; your sins are heavy, and many; but the atonement for them is completed by the death of Christ. Look then to Jesus, and remember that Christ needs nothing to supplement his blood. The road between God and man is finished and open; the robe to cover your nakedness is complete, without a rag of yours; the bath where you are to be washed is full, full to the brim, and needs nothing to be added to it. “It is finished!” Let that ring in your ears. There is nothing now that can hinder your being saved, if God has made you willing now to believe in Jesus Christ. He is a complete Saviour, full of grace for an empty sinner.

10. 5. And yet I must add one more thought, and then leave this point. The blood of Jesus Christ is blood that has been accepted. Christ died—he was buried; but neither heaven nor earth could tell whether God had accepted the ransom. What was needed was God’s seal upon the great Magna Charta1 of man’s salvation, and that seal was affixed, my hearer, in that hour when God summoned the angel, and bade him descend from heaven and roll away the stone. Christ was put in vile confinement in the prison house of the grave, as a hostage for his people. Until God had signed the warrant for acquittal of all his people, Christ must remain in the bonds of death. He did not attempt to breakout of his prison; he did not come out illegally, by wrenching down the bars of his dungeon; he waited: he wrapped up the napkin, folding it by itself: he laid the grave clothes in a separate place; he waited, waited patiently; and at last down from the skies, like the flash of a meteor, the angel descended, touched the stone and rolled it away; and when Christ came out, rising from the dead in the glory of his Father’s power, then the seal was stamped upon the great Magna Charta of our redemption. The blood was accepted, and sin was forgiven. And now, soul, it is not possible for God to reject you, if you come this day to him, pleading the blood of Christ. God cannot—and here we speak with reverence too—the everlasting God cannot reject a sinner who pleads the blood of Christ: for if he did so, it would be to deny himself; and to contradict all his former acts. He has accepted blood, and he will accept it; he never can revoke that divine acceptance of the resurrection; and if you go to God, my hearer, pleading simply and only the blood of him who hung upon the tree, God must un-God himself before he can reject you, or reject that blood.

11. And yet I fear that I have not been able to make you think of the blood of Christ. I beseech you, then, just for a moment to try to picture for yourself Christ on the cross. Let your imagination envision the motley crew assembled around that little hill of Calvary. Lift up your eyes now, and see the three crosses put upon that rising knoll. See in the centre the thorn crowned brow of Christ. Do you see the hands that have always been full of blessing nailed fast to the accursed wood! Do you see his dear face, more marred than that of any other man? Do you see it now, as his head bows upon his bosom in the extreme agonies of death? He was a real man, remember. It was a real cross. Do not think of these things as figments, and fancies, and romances. There was such a being, and he died as I describe it. Let your imagination picture him, and then sit still a moment and think over this thought: “The blood of that man, whom now I behold dying in agony, must be my redemption; and if I wish to be saved, I must put my only trust in what he suffered for me, when he himself ‘bore our sins in his own body on the tree.’” If God the Holy Spirit should help you, you will then be in a right frame of mind to proceed to the second point.

12. II. THE EFFICACY OF THIS BLOOD. “When I see the blood I will pass over you.”

13. 1. The blood of Christ has such a divine power to save, that nothing except it can ever save the soul. If some foolish Israelite had despised the command of God, and had said, “I will sprinkle something else upon the door posts,” or, “I will adorn the lintel with jewels of gold and silver,” he must have perished; nothing could save his household but the sprinkled blood. And now let us all remember, that “no other foundation can any man lay than that which is laid, Jesus Christ,” for “there is no other name given among men by which we must be saved.” My works, my prayers, my tears, cannot save me; the blood, the blood alone, has power to redeem. Sacraments, however well they may be attended to, cannot save me. Nothing but your blood, oh Jesus, can redeem me from the guilt of sin. Though I should give rivers of oil, and ten thousand of the fat of fed beasts; yes, though I should give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul, all would be useless. Nothing except the blood of Jesus has in it the slightest saving power. Oh! you who are trusting in your infant baptism, your confirmation, and your Lord’s Supper, you are trusting in a lie. Nothing but the blood of Jesus can save. I do not care how proper the ordinance is, how true the form, how scriptural the practice, it is all a vanity to you if you rely on it. God forbid I should say a word against ordinances, or against holy things; but keep them in their proper places. If you make them the basis of your soul’s salvation, they are lighter than a shadow, and when you need them most you shall find that they fail you. There is not, I repeat it again, the slightest atom of saving power anywhere except in the blood of Jesus. That blood has the only power to save, and anything else that you rely upon shall be a refuge of lies. This is the rock, and this is the work that is perfect; but all other things are daydreams; they must be swept away in the day when God shall come to try our work to see what kind it is. THE BLOOD stands out in solitary majesty, the only rock of our salvation.

14. 2. This blood is not simply the only thing that can save, but it must save alone. Put anything with the blood of Christ, and you are lost; trust in anything else with this, and you will perish. “It is true,” one says, “that the Sacrament cannot save me, but I will trust in that, and in Christ too.” You are a lost man, then. So jealous is Christ of his honour, that anything you put with him, however good it is, becomes, from the fact of your putting it with him, an accursed thing. And what is it that you would put with Christ? Your good works? What! will you yoke a reptile with an angel—yoke yourself to the chariot of salvation with Christ? What are your good works? Your righteousnesses are “as filthy rags;” and shall filthy rags be joined to the spotless celestial righteousness of Christ? It must not, and it shall not be. Rely on Jesus only, and you cannot perish; but rely on anything with him, and you are as surely damned as if you should rely upon your sins. Jesus only—Jesus only—Jesus only—this is the rock of our salvation.

15. And here let me stop, and combat a few forms and shapes which our self-righteousness always takes. “Oh,” one says, “I could trust in Christ if I felt my sins more.” Sir, that is a damning error. Is your repentance, your sense of sin, to be a part Saviour? Sinner! the blood is to save you, not your tears, Christ’s death, not your repentance. You are bidden this day to trust in Christ; not in your feelings, not in your pangs on account of sin. Many a man has been brought into great soul distress, because he has looked more at his repentance than at the obedience of Christ—

Could your tears for ever flow,
  Could your zeal no respite know;
All for sin could not atone,
  Christ must save and Christ alone.

16. “No,” says another, “but I feel that I do not value the blood of Christ as I ought to, and therefore I am afraid to believe.” My friend, that is another insidious form of the same error. God does not say, “When I see your estimate of the blood of Christ, I will pass over you; no, but when I see the blood.” It is not your estimate of that blood, it is the blood that saves you. As I said before, that magnificent, solitary blood, must be alone.

17. “No,” says another, “but if I had more faith then I would have hope.” That, too, is a very deadly shape of the same evil. You are not to be saved by the efficacy of your faith, but by the efficacy of the blood of Christ. It is not your believing, it is Christ’s dying. I bid you believe, but I bid you not to look to your believing as the ground of your salvation. No man will go to heaven if he trusts in his own faith; you may as well trust in your own good works as trust in your faith. Your faith must deal with Christ not with itself. The world hangs on nothing; but faith cannot hang upon itself, it must hang on Christ. Sometimes, when my faith is vigorous, I catch myself doing this. There is joy flowing into my heart, and after awhile I begin to find that my joy suddenly departs. I ask the reason for this, and I found that the joy came because I was thinking of Christ; but when I begin to think about my joy, then my joy fled. You must not think of your faith but of Christ. Faith comes from meditation upon Christ. Turn, then, your eye, not upon faith but upon Jesus. It is not your hold of Christ that saves you, it is his hold of you. It is not the efficacy of your believing in him; it is the efficacy of his blood applied to you through the Spirit.

18. I do not know how sufficiently to follow Satan in all his windings into the human heart but this, I know, he is always trying to keep back this great truth—the blood, and the blood alone has power to save. “Oh,” says another, “if I had such-and-such an experience then I could trust.” Friend, it is not your experience, it is the blood. God did not say, “When I see your experience,” but “When I see the blood of Christ.” “No,” one says, “but if I had such-and-such graces, I could hope.” No, but he did not say, “When I see your graces,” but “When I see the blood.” Get grace, get as much as you can of faith, and love, and hope, but oh, do not put them where Christ’s blood ought to be. The only pillar of your hope must be the cross, and anything else that you put to buttress up the cross of Christ is obnoxious to God, and ceases to have any virtue in it, because it is an antichrist. The blood of Christ, then alone, saves; but mix anything with it, and it does not save.

19. 3. Yet again we may say of the blood of Christ, it is all sufficient. There is no case which the blood of Christ cannot handle; there is no sin which it cannot wash away. There is no multiplicity of sin which it cannot cleanse, no aggravation of guilt which it cannot remove. You may be double dyed like scarlet, you may have lain in the lye of your sins these seventy years, but the blood of Christ can take out the stain. You may have blasphemed him almost as many times as you have breathed, you may have rejected him as often as you have heard his name; you may have broken his Sabbath, you may have denied his existence, you may have doubted his Godhead, you may have persecuted his servants, you may have trampled on his blood; but the blood can wash away all this. You may have committed fornications without number, no, murder itself may have defiled your hands, but this fountain filled with blood can wash all the stains away. The blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin. There is no sort of a man, there is no abortion of mankind, no demon in human shape that this blood cannot wash. Hell may have sought to make a paragon of iniquity, it may have striven to put sin, and sin, and sin together, until it has made a monster in the shape of a man, a monster abhorred by mankind, but the blood of Christ can transform that monster. Magdalene’s seven devils it can cast out, the madness of the demoniac, it can ease, the deep seated leprosy, it can cure, the wound of the maimed, yes, the lost limb it can restore. There is no spiritual disease which the great Physician cannot heal. This is the great Catholicon, the medicine for all diseases. No case can exceed its healing virtue, no matter how black or vile; all sufficient, all sufficient blood.

20. 4. But go further. The blood of Christ saves surely. Many people say, “Well, I hope I shall be saved through the blood of Christ;” and perhaps, one says here, who is believing in Christ, “Well, I hope it will save.” My dear friend, that is a slur upon the honour of God. If any man gives you a promise, and you say, “Well, I hope he will fulfil it;” is it not implied that you have at least some small doubt as to whether he will or not? Now, I do not hope that the blood of Christ will wash away my sin. I know it is washed away by his blood, and that is true faith which does not hope about Christ’s blood, but says, “I know it is so; that blood does cleanse. The moment it was applied to my conscience it did cleanse, and it does cleanse still.” The Israelite, if he was true to his faith, did not go inside, and say, “I hope the destroying angel will pass by me;” but he said, “I know he will; I know God cannot strike me; I know he will not. There is the blood mark there, I am secure beyond a doubt; there is not the shadow of a doubt of my perishing. I am, I must be saved.” And so I preach a sure gospel this morning: “Whoever believes on the Lord Jesus Christ shall not perish but have everlasting life.” “I give to my sheep eternal life,” he said, “and they shall never perish, neither shall anyone pluck them out of my hand.” Oh, sinner, I have not the shadow of a doubt as to whether Christ will save you if you trust in his blood. Oh no, I know he will. I am certain his blood can save; and I beg you, in Christ’s name, believe the same; believe that that blood is sure to cleanse, not only that it may cleanse, but that it must cleanse, “by which we must be saved,” says the Scripture. If we have that blood upon us we must be saved, or else we are to suppose an unfaithful and unkind God; in fact, a God transformed from everything that is God-like into everything that is base.

21. 5. And yet again, he who has this blood sprinkled upon him is saved completely. Not the hair of the head of an Israelite was disturbed by the destroying angel. They were completely saved; so he who believes in the blood is saved from all things. I like the old translation of the chapter in the Romans. There was a martyr once summoned before Bonner;2 and after he had expressed his faith in Christ, Bonner said, “You are a heretic and will be damned.” “No” said he, quoting the old version, “There is therefore now no damnation to those who believe in Christ Jesus.” And that brings a sweet thought before us; there is no damnation to the man who has the blood of Christ upon him, he cannot be condemned by God at all. It would be impossible. There is no such thing; there can be no such thing. There is no damnation. He cannot be damned; for there is no damnation to him who is in Christ Jesus. Let the blood be applied to the lintel, and to the doorpost, there is no destruction. There is a destroying angel for Egypt, but there is none for Israel. There is a hell for the wicked, but none for the righteous. And if there is none, they cannot be put there. If there is no damnation they cannot suffer it. Christ saves completely; every sin is washed, every blessing ensured, perfection is provided, and glory everlasting is the sure result.

22. I think then, I have spent sufficient time upon the efficacy of his blood; but no tongue of seraph can ever speak its worth. I must go home to my room, and weep because I am powerless to tell this story, and yet I have laboured to tell it simply, so that all can understand; and I pray, therefore, that God the Spirit may lead some of you to put your trust simply, wholly, and entirely, on the blood of Jesus Christ.

23. III. This brings us to the third point, upon which I must be very brief, and the third point is—THE ONE CONDITION. “What!” one says “Do you preach a conditional salvation?” Yes I do, there is the one condition. “When I see the blood I will pass over you.” What a blessed condition! it does not say, when you see the blood but when I see it. Your eye of faith may be so dim, that you cannot see the blood of Christ. Indeed, but God’s eye is not dim; he can see it, yes he must see it; for Christ in heaven is always presenting his blood before his Father’s face. The Israelite could not see the blood; he was inside the house; he could not see what was on the lintel and the doorpost; but God could see it; and this is the only condition for the sinner’s salvation—God’s seeing the blood; not your seeing it. Oh how safe, then, is everyone who trusts in the Lord Jesus Christ. It is not his faith that is the condition, not his assurance; it is the simple fact, that Calvary is set perpetually before the eyes of God in a risen and ascended Saviour. “When I see the blood, I will pass over you.” Fall on your knees then in prayer, you doubting souls, and let this be your plea:—“Lord, have mercy upon me for the blood’s sake. I cannot see it as I could desire, but Lord you see it, and you have said, ‘When I see it, I will pass over you.’ Lord, you see it this day, pass over my sin, and forgive me for its dear sake alone.”

24. IV. And now, lastly, WHAT IS THE LESSON? To the Christian the lesson of the text is this. Christian, take care that you always remember, that nothing except the blood of Christ can save you. I preach to myself today what I preach to you. I often find myself like this:—I have been praying that the Holy Spirit might rest in my heart and cleanse out an evil passion, and presently I find myself full of doubts and fears, and when I ask the reason, I find it is this:—I have been looking to the Spirit’s work until I put the Spirit’s work where Christ’s work ought to be. Now, it is a sin to put your own works where Christ’s should be; but it is just as much a sin to put the Holy Spirit’s work there. You must never make the Spirit of God an antichrist, and you virtually do that when you put the Spirit’s work as the groundwork of your faith. Do you not often hear Christian men say, “I cannot believe in Christ today as I could yesterday, for yesterday I felt such sweet and blessed enjoyments.” Now, what is that except putting your frame of mind and feelings where Christ ought to be. Remember, Christ’s blood is no more able to save you in a good frame of mind than in a bad frame of mind. Christ’s blood must be your trust, as much when you are full of joy as when you are full of doubt. And here it is that your happiness will be in danger, by beginning to put your good frame of mind and good feelings in the place of the blood of Christ. Oh, brethren, if we could always live with a single eye fixed on the cross, we would always be happy; but when we get a little peace, and a little joy, we begin to prize the joy and peace so much, that we forget the source from where they come. As Mr. Brooks says, “A husband who loves his wife will, perhaps, often give her jewels and rings; but suppose she should sit down and begin to think of her jewels and rings so much that she should forget her husband, it would be a kind husband’s business to take them away from her so that she might fix her affections entirely on him.” And it is so with us. Jesus gives us jewels of faith and love, and we get trusting in them, and he takes them away in order that we may come again as guilty, helpless sinners, and put our trust in Christ. To quote a verse I often repeat—I believe the spirit of a Christian should be, from his first hour to his last, the spirit of these two lines:—

Nothing in my hand I bring,
Simply to your cross I cling.

That is the lesson to the saint.

25. But another moment; there is a lesson here for the sinner. Poor, trembling, guilty self-condemned sinner, I have a word from the Lord for you. “The blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us,” that is you and me, “cleanses us from all sin.” That “us” includes you, if now you are feeling your need of a Saviour. Now that blood is able to save you, and you are bidden simply to trust that blood, and you shall be saved. But I hear you say, “Sir,” you said, “If I feel my need. Now I feel that I do not feel, I only wish I did feel my need enough.” Well do not bring your feelings then, but trust only in the blood. If you can rely simply on the blood of Christ, whatever your feelings may be, or may not be, that blood is able to save. But you are saying, “How am I to be saved? What must I do?” Well there is nothing that you can do. You must stop doing altogether, in order to be saved. There must be a denial of all your doings. You must get Christ first, and then you may do as much as you like. But you must not trust in your doings. Your business is now to lift up your heart in prayer like this:—“Lord, you have shown me something about myself, show me something about my Saviour.” See the Saviour hanging on the cross, turn your eye to him, and say, “Lord, I trust you; I have nothing else to trust in, but I rely on you; sink or swim, my Saviour, I trust you.” And as surely sinner, as you can put your trust in Christ, you are as safe as an apostle or prophet. Neither death nor hell can kill that man whose firm reliance is at the foot of the cross. “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved.” “He who believes and is baptized shall be saved; he who does not believe shall be damned.” He who believes shall be saved, though his sins are ever so many; he who does not believe shall be damned, though his sins are ever so few, and his virtues ever so many. Trust in Jesus now! Sinner, trust in Jesus only.

Not all the blood of beasts
  On Jewish altars slain
Could give the guilty conscience peace,
  Or wash away the stain.

But Christ, the heavenly Lamb,
  Takes all our sins away;
A sacrifice of nobler name
  And richer blood than they.