The Yale expositor. (Yale, St. Clair County, Mich.) 1894-current, 1898-06-03


our smallest sin. Sin is such an out
rage on Gods universe that nothing
but blood can atone for it. You know
the life is in the blood, and as the life
had been forfeited, nothing could buy
1t back but blood. What was it that
was sprinkled on the door posts when
the destroying angel went through the
land? Blood. What was it that went
streaming from the altar Of ancient
sacrifice? Blood. What was it that the
priest carried into the holy Of HOLES,
making intercession for the people?
Blood. What was it that Jesus sweat
in the garden OF Gethsemane? Great
drops OF blood. What does the wine in
the sacramento cup signify? Blood.
what makes the robes Of the righteous
in heaven so fair? They are washed
in the blood of the Lamb. What Is 1t
that cleanses all our pollution? The
blood of Jesus Christ, that cleanseth
from all sin.
l hear somebody saying, 81 do not
like such a sanguinary religion as
that" Do you think it Is very wise
for the patient to tell the doctor, Il
don't like the medicine you have given
me?" II he wants to be cured. he had
better take the medicine. My Lord
God has offered us a balm, and it is
very foolish for us to say, Il don't
like that balm" We had better take
1t, and be saved. But you do not OPP
pose the shedding of blood in other d.
rections and for other ends. If
hundred thousand men go out to battle
for their country, and have to lay down
their lives for free institutions, is there
anything ignoble about that? No, you
say; GLORIOUS sacrifice rather" And
is there anything ignoble in the idea
that the Lord Jesus Christ, by the
shedding of his blood, delivered not
only one land, but all lands and all
ages, from bondage. introducing men
by millions and millions into the lib
erty Of the sons Of God? Is there any
thing ignoble about that?
AS this second bird of the text was
plunged in the blood Of the first bird,
so we must be washed in the blood OF
Christ, or go polluted forever
l notice now that as soon as this
second bird was dipped in the blood of
the first bird, the priest unloosened it
and it was free-free Of wing and free
of foot. 1t could whet its beak on any
tree-branch il chose. 1t could peck the
grapes of any vineyard it chose. 1t was
free; a type OF our souls after we have
washed in the blood of the Lamb. We
can go where we will. We can do
what we will. You say, Had you not
better qualify that?" No; for l re-
member that in conversion the will is
changed, and the man will not will
that which is wrong. There is no
straight jacket in our religion. A state
of sin is a state of slavery. A state
Of pardon is a state of emancipation.
The hammer of Gods grace knocks the
| topples from the feet, knocks the
handouts from the wrist, opens the
door into a landscape all ashimmer
with fountains and abloom with gar
dens. It is freedom.
If man has become a Christian, he
| Is no more afraid of Sinai The thun-
ders of Sinai do not brighten him. You
have, on some August day, seen two
thunder-showers meet. One cloud from
this mountain, and another cloud from
that mountain, coming nearer and
nearer together and responding to
each other. crash to crash, thunder to
thunder, boom! boom! And then the
clouds break and the torrents pour, and
they are emptied perhaps into the very
same stream that comes down so red at
your feet, that 1t seems as If all the car
mage of the storm-battle has been emp
tied into ii. So in this Bible | see two
storms gather. one above Sinai, the
other above Calvary, and they respond
one to the other-fash to flash, thun-
der to thunder, boom! boom! Sinai
thunders, THE soul that sinneth, 1t
shall de-" Calvary responds, "Save
them from going down to the pit, for
/ have found a ransom" Sinai says,
"Woe! woe" Calvary answers, "Mer-
cy! mercy" and then the cloud bursts
and empty their treasures into one tor
rent, and it comes flowing to our feet,
red with the carnage of our Lord-in
which, If thy soul be plunged, like the
bird in the text, it shall go forth free
free! Oh, wish all people to under
stand this; that when a man becomes
a Christian he does not become
slave, but that he becomes free man;
that he has larger liberty after he be-
comes a child of God than before he
became a child of God General Fisk
said that he once stood at a slave-bock
where an old Christian minister was
being sold. The auctioneer said of
him, what bid do hear for this man?
He is very good kind of man; he
is a minister" Somebody said TWEEN
ty dollars" Che was very old and not
worth much); somebody else twenty
-"thirty''-"thirty- flve"-"forty."
The aged Christian minister began to
tremble. He had expected to be able
to buy his own freedom, and he had
just seventy dollars, and expected with
the seventy dollars to get free. AS the
bids ran up the old man trembled more
and more. "Forty'-"forty-fv
'fifty-five"- "sixty"-"sixty-flv