In this sermon, the preacher emphasizes the importance of understanding the love of God through the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. He explains that the blood and water that came out when Jesus was pierced on the cross is a direct reaction to bearing the sins and hell of humanity. The preacher emphasizes that there is no other way to salvation except through the blood of Jesus. He urges listeners to study the facts of the crucifixion and not let Christianity become a mere philosophy, but rather a personal understanding of God's love and sacrifice.

Today I'm going to take you to John chapter 19, where Jesus dies on the cross. You need to know something about crucifixion to understand what happens in this passage, and you also need to know that what I really want to focus on is verse 34. The soldier pierced his side with a spear, and immediately what happened? Blood and water came out. I've read this many, many times, and every time I read it I went, huh, blood and water. Now, I just don't understand why John sticks some of the odd details in that he does, but he does, and that's the way John writes, blood and water, moving right along. And yet, John puts it in here for a reason. It's peculiar, it's odd. It's also noteworthy that none of the other gospel writers include it, so why does he include it? If he includes it and they don't, and John does everything he does to show that Jesus Christ is God, then somehow it's connected to that. And John is the one that he said he so loved the world that he, God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever would believe on him would not perish but have everlasting life. Somehow it's connected to that. And it's so unusual, and space is limited, wording is guided by God himself, why would he just say a soldier goes by and jabs him and moves on? There's something very, very powerful about the cross itself and what he did for us, bound up in this reality that immediately blood and water came out. The reason it's so critical that you know that, that you know God's crazy about you, that you know he's madly in love with you, he's so dedicatedly in love with you that he goes and he dies. This is God in the body of a man. He dies in your place. He bears the penalty of your sin. The reason you need to know that this is the ultimate expression of his love and in a sense, the final statement, because he's never going to say anything beyond this to you about how much he loves you. The reason you need to know it and I need to know it is because when all the horrible things of life happen, we turn and we look at them and then we turn back to him and we say, if you love me, why would you allow this? But he never said he would shield us from all of life. Never. He said, I will come to you. I will live in you and I will never leave you and I will never forsake you. I will go through it with you. We see the son of God. He walks on the earth. He is not shielded from life. He's hanging here being tortured with the worst possible death. The Romans didn't even crucify their own citizens, only foreigners and the lowliest of lowly criminal slaves. And why is he dead when people live for three days crucified and he's already been beaten with a cat of nine tails, a thing about this long wielded by a professional whose job it was to whip people in such a way that with the metal and bone on the end of that, those long leather straps, as the man was chained or tied to a post so that all the skin on his back was stretched tight, that man would whip you with 40 lashes, but there's like many layers of leather lashes, 40 times designed to do it in such a way as to get a confession from you as a criminal. If you confess early, he will go lighter for all the rest of the 40 lashes. If you don't confess early, he'll bear down. Everybody confessed eventually so that he would lighten up. Jesus never sinned. He had nothing to confess. So the farther he went that man whipping him, the harder he whipped him. And every time the bone and the glass and the metal grabbed the skin and pulled off ribbons of flesh every single time. And as he hit him harder and harder and harder and harder, he would have gone from neck to thighs, the back of his thighs, ripping the flesh off his body. This is what our Lord went through for you and for me. He'd already been punched and abused by the soldiers, and then they took him out and they crucified him and they tied the two thieves to the cross with ropes. They nailed Jesus Christ with big spikes through his wrist to the cross. They made him carry the cross beam on the cross, which weighed about 120 pounds. He carried it as far as he could, and he fell. They compelled Simon of Cyrenean to carry the rest of the way. The other part of the cross, the vertical part, weighed about 200 pounds. They would carry that out there, have it there, and then they would have assembled it on Golgotha on Calvary right there on the hillside, and they would have laid him down and laid down his back, arms spread out, legs down. Then they drove in those big, huge iron spikes. They didn't put them in the hand because the weight of the body would pull the spike right through the hand. They put right here the spike in the wrist, which is a nerve center in the body that every martial arts person knows is the first place you go when someone's attacking you. You go for that nerve center, you grab it, twist the wrist, and you've got the person. And those nerve centers is where they drove the spikes. Any movement at all shot shooting pain through the whole body. The feet were pulled up, the knees were pulled up, a block of wood was put under the feet, and then the spikes were put through both feet in a similar nerve center in the feet. Already whipped with all the skin torn off his back already punched to the point. The Bible says he was beyond recognition as a man. They made him look like hamburger, and then they nailed him up there. These are the facts of our gospel. If there was any other way, God, the father would have gone that way to save us. Our sin is so great. We have no clue. We're just such sinners. We don't have a clue. His holiness is so great. One sin curse the whole universe. Our sin is so great. There was no other way than to have a substitute to die in our place. He announced that substitute in in Genesis 3 15 right after man's sin. The plan was there in effect. If there was any other way he would have done it. But this is how grave the issue is. This is how serious the issue of sin is that God himself had to become a man and go through this if anyone was to be saved. And so they nailed him up there. And when they come to break the legs of the men to get them off the cross so they can have their tidy Sabbath for the Jews, they break the legs of the two thieves, and then they come to Jesus. And the Bible says that the soldiers came in verse 32 and broke the legs of the first and of the other who was crucified with him. But when they came to Jesus and saw he was what already dead. These guys are trained killers. They know a dead man when they see one. They don't bother to break his legs. Proof that he really was dead. He really was a man. He really was there. He really went through this. This is no phantom. And we need to think about that because you see what happens to us is we all have the tendency to just turn our Christianity into a philosophy. The gospel that Jesus died for you becomes a cliche. And eventually the man, the human being that went there as my substitute just becomes blurred into the philosophy. I need to come here and study these facts. The gospel is first and foremost built on facts. Biblical Christianity with a biblical gospel gives out a message of the good news that you can go to heaven instead of hell. And it's built on the facts of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. The facts. First and foremost, the facts. John is giving us the facts. He was already dead. He was a real man. He really died. These are the facts. And when the soldier plunged in the spear and back out immediately, blood and water came out. These are the facts. But here is the thing that we must stop and ponder. Why did blood and water come out and why did he put it in here? If you stick a spear in a dead man, you will not get blood and water back out. It doesn't happen. It doesn't happen. He is already dead, verified by the soldiers. The man thrust the spear and purely out of hatred as they had punched him and beat him up and whipped him before out of hatred, purely hatred. The blood and water proves he is already dead. But why the blood and water? There is only one medical answer as to why blood and water would come out immediately. Only one. And that is this, that he shoved the spear into his side. He says in his side, he shoved it in there into his side, right up to the heart. Only one medical answer. And it's this a ruptured heart, a heart that has burst, has broken and burst. All the blood is rushed out of it. You see, you need to understand a little bit about the heart. The heart, for one thing, is one of the most powerful muscles in the body. It works and works and works every day that you live right throughout your lifetime. That'll tell you something about the strength of it. Jesus Christ, being sinless, had a heart then that would be very strong because sin breaks your body down. How many know that already? He never sinned. No breakdown. You die because of sin. You age and you die and you weaken. He never sinned. This man then has a strong heart. The heart sits inside of a little sack called the pericardium. If you can't visualize it, just get a Ziploc bag in your mind for a moment. Use it. Okay. Seriously, that's how I got into figuring it out. I've looked at it for years, couldn't figure it out. Ziploc helped me. Just imagine the heart inside of a Ziploc bag and close it tight. Inside is a very tiny bit of liquid, not much, just a tiny bit. Certainly not enough to immediately have liquid flow out if a spear went in there. Definitely not. But in the heart and through the heart pumps all of this blood, a lot of blood. Medical doctors that have researched this say that it is possible a heart could rupture a normal heart. It's probably never going to happen to a normal heart, though, if not impossible to happen to a normal heart. That is the result of medical contemplation and research. So it's possible a heart could rupture. It never really happens to a normal heart. Some medical experts say it's impossible to happen to a normal heart. Yet here is a ruptured heart. Because when a heart ruptures, then, inside that little sack, what happens is the blood comes gushing out of the heart and it fills the sack, it floods it with blood. And if not beyond the sack, blood, if it is left to sit, will coagulate, it will clot, and the clotting will separate from the liquid. When the priest would sacrifice the animals and sprinkle the blood around the altars and all, they would have it in bowls and they would continuously swirl it so it wouldn't coagulate and separate into clot and water, basically. You leave blood alone like that and that's what it does. If a heart was to rupture and burst, the pericardium sack would be flooded, and then the blood would clot, and then it would separate from the liquid, and you would effectively then have the whole pericardium flooded with blood and water. That is the only way blood and water could come out, medically speaking. A normal heart probably will never rupture, medical experts say, and some say it's impossible even for a normal heart to rupture. Yet here is a ruptured heart. Yet here is John saying blood and water on purpose. Why? For a reason. Because here is God bearing our sin, and he wants us to know that clearly. See, what happens then is you come to the point where you say, okay, I understand that blood and water came out because there was a ruptured heart, but we have to come to this question, then what caused it? It is the only conclusion you can come to medically, so then what caused it? If medical research and experts say that it's almost impossible to happen, if ever, to a normal heart, then what made this heart rupture? Well, some say that his heart ruptured because of the incredible fear of it all. Incredible fear of it all as he was dying. Well, people have been dying since the beginning of the human race, and many people have died, millions have died in great fear, but their heart doesn't rupture. The church history is the martyrs were thrown to the lions as they were tortured, as they were lit on fire, dipped in pitch, and burnt alive for Nero's garden parties, and everything else that happened to the martyrs. Often the martyrs would be overcome with fear, but would not deny the Lord, but still be overcome with fear, a human after all. And then they died, but their heart didn't rupture. Yet here is a ruptured heart. Here is blood and water. God forgives because he's love. God is love. Take the sin out, take the blood out, take the guilt out, take the hell out, all of that mess. Let's tidy it up, get it real clean, get the Bible out of here. Any religious symbols out of here? Okay. Yet here is a ruptured heart. You take that philosophy, take your philosophy. Here is a ruptured heart. What do you do with this? Here is blood and water. What do you do with this? So some say the fear of death, but you see, people don't rupture, their hearts don't rupture because they're afraid in death. Others say it was the great disappointment of a great cause that failed. Emotional heartbreak so extreme that it's heartbursts. Hey, people have died throughout the ages in great disappointment at the end of great causes that failed, whole lifetimes that have failed, that there's no ruptured heart. Why does this heart rupture? Why this blood and water? What caused his heart to burst? It was this. It was the discharge of God's wrath out from almighty God, the thrice holy God. Holy, holy, holy God. Isaiah six. It was the discharge of his wrath against sin and the outpouring of his wrath upon sin that hit him. It was the wrath of God against sin that caused his heart to burst. Romans 8 32 says that he did not spare his own son. We did one whole message on that in Romans going through the scriptures, showing how God did not hold anything back on the cross. He did not spare his own son. He delivered him up. He smote him for your sin and mine. All we like sheep have gone astray. We've gone each one to his own way, but the Lord has laid on him what the iniquity of us all. So here is the outpoured wrath of God. The wrath of God is discharged from his holiness against sin. God, we are told in Romans is just. That means holy, fair and just. And he is the justifier of sinners. There is no way for him to be just in the justifier. If he says, fine, I forgive you. You're justified. Then he's not just because he's holy and because he's holy, he must judge sin. And yet here is Roman saying he's just in the justifier. The only way he can be just in the justifier is if he becomes a man. He takes the penalty of his wrath in full from my life. Then having paid the payment for my sin, taken the punishment for my sin, which would take eternity to dispatch to me, having taken it into himself. Then he can say, I paid the price. Myself and I forgive you based on the fact I paid the price. The price was paid for your sin. The punishment was served in full and taken in full. And I declare you justified. Paid in full. Jesus paid it all, all to him I owe. Paid the high price of his life. He died in my place. What killed Christ? What broke his heart? What burst his heart? It was the wrath of God poured out on him as my substitute that caused his heart to rupture. Psalm 6920 says, Reproach has broken my heart. Psalm 6920, it's a prophetic psalm of the crucifixion. The reproach is the wrath of God. Broken heart. Usually in the Hebrew and the Old Testament, the heart is the center of the emotions and the word for physical heart is not used. It's the word that means the center of your emotions. And yet here in Psalm 6920 is the word in the Hebrew for physical heart. The wrath of God has broken, burst my physical heart. It's a prophecy fulfilled exactly here on the cross and Jesus Christ written before crucifixion was ever invented. Looking toward Christ dying for us. So then. Here is blood and water. When they whipped him and tore the flesh from his body, there was a lot of blood. When they pounded in the spikes, there was a lot of blood. We are saved by the blood of Jesus. That's part of our message. But let me ask you a question. What is the most important blood? You see, the blood that came from the whipping came as a result of man's torture. The blood that came when they pounded in the spikes. Flowed out of them as a result of man's torture. The blood that came from his face when they pushed down the crown of thorns came as a result of man's torture. Yet here is blood and water and it comes from inside from a burst, ruptured heart. How did that happen? Where did that blood come from? That blood did not come as a result of man. That blood came as a result of God, the father, not sparing his son and pouring out the full vials of his wrath against sin. And his son took it all because he loved me so much. What did he take? My hell. This is the blood right here that saves me. Because his heart burst when he took my hell upon himself. What does that mean? I used to think hell was just a big black burning room where it was huge and had a kind of bottomless thing to it. God judged you at the great white throne. If you're a Christ rejecter and you're unforgiven, he opens the door when he's all done, shoves you in, slams it basically. And you go into this dark, burning place forever. And he's not there and he never goes there and you're done with him forever. There's a problem with that. And the problem is this, that God is omnipresent. Whither shall I go from my presence? Whither shall I flee from my spirit? If I ascend into heaven, thou art there. If I descend into hell, thou art there. What that means then is that you are born, you're going to live forever and you're never going to get rid of God. At the very minimum, that's what that means. It means he's omnipresent and you're going to live forever. So wherever you live forever, you're never getting rid of God. Here is blood and water because he bore your guilt and your shame and your sin and your wrath so you never have to go to hell. So instead you get to go with him. He says to a thief, a murderer, because he believed on him freely. You will be with me this day in paradise and your buddy's going to hell. That's Danny footnote, but that's the way it works. And so here it is. What is hell? If God is omnipresent, what is hell? What is the worm that dies not in the fire that's not quenched? What is it? It is the outpouring of God's wrath on you for eternity and it comes from him and he's everywhere at once. It is a negative relationship to God. It is a relationship to God that is only a flow of wrath, a discharge of wrath to you forever because that's what it takes for you to pay your offense to an all holy God. That's what hell is. It's you and God and all you get is wrath. That's why when you read God so loved the world, he gave his only begotten son, only one, but whoever believed in him would not perish, but have everlasting life. That's what it's talking about. He so loved you. He doesn't want you to go there because he doesn't like to judge people. It's called his strange work in Isaiah. He would rather take you to heaven, rather show you around forever his glory, rather take you like the thief and save you in a moment. This day you'll be with me. He'd rather give it to you as a gift because his son already paid the price. Why should you have to pay the price? He paid it in full. He said, it is finished. The Greek is Tate tell us thigh. It means paid in full. Those that understood that accounting terms nearby anybody there was a Latin equivalent. The Romans would have understood. Anybody listening would have understood. He just shouted, paid in full. And those who read their old Testament scriptures would have known exactly. He was saying the price for your sin is paid in full. Salvation is now free. And coincidentally, the veil was rent into the holy place with access now open to any that wanted to come all the way up fully into the presence of God personally, anytime paid in full, it is finished. So when he bore that, my wrath, this is it. An eternity of the experience of God's wrath being poured out. Let me put it in manageable terms every day. I mean, how else can we manage eternity every day? You're there every day. You're never going to get out every day. God is pouring out his wrath on you as he poured it out on Christ. Only every day forever. So when Jesus died on the cross for me, when he cried out, my God, why have you forsaken me, forsaken me and everything went dark on the earth, it's because suddenly he took the eternal experience of Danny Bond, having God's wrath poured out on him forever, day by day in hell. And he condensed an eternity of hell into a few hours, a few moments and dropped it onto his son, God, the bomb of my eternal, my God, and his heart as he took that bomb and threw his arms around it because he loves me so much. He wanted to protect me from hell forever. And he pulled that bomb of my eternal hell in close. That bomb went off and it blew his heart to pieces. Blood and water, ruptured heart. That's how much he loves me. He was a human being. He felt it. It wasn't just God numbing it. He didn't numb it. God did not spare him. He felt it. It's as if suddenly one of us here could be that. And we watched, all of us, as you went. Every single one of us would be crying our eyes out. He felt it. He felt the sin tailor-made by my sin, because that's what hell is. It is matched to every sin you've ever committed. So your hell is tailor-made by your sin and your life, unatoned for, unforgiven. I know the sinful life I've lived. I know all my sins. They're ever before me. I can only imagine what hell would be for Danny Bond. I can't imagine what that invasion of that punishment and his holy soul, what it must have felt like. All I can see is the blood in the water and know that it was so bad that his heart burst. Burst. You see, the thing is, is that it wasn't just mine. It was yours too. You see, and yours and yours and yours. So much he loves you. That's how much he loves you. For the joy that was set before me, he did this to see you in heaven. That's how much he loves you. So if this passage tells us anything, it tells us that there was no other way. God would never have allowed this to happen to a son. If there was any other, it tells us there was no other way in the garden. He said, father, if there is any other way, and just thinking about it was so horrible, he began to sweat blood through his pores. That tells me a little bit more of the horror of it, but there was no other way. So if anything, it tells us there's no other way that God could save a man. The Bible says without the shedding of blood, there's no remission of sin. Period. He had to die. He had to die in my place. If ever God could be just and the justifier, there is only one way to God, blood and water. This blood came when he bore my eternity of hell in a few hours and his heart burst. The blood that came out is a direct reaction from bearing Danny Bond's held. You get it? It's a direct reaction. His heart bursting from bearing your hell. Do you get it? This blood and water is the most important of any blood anywhere in the whole Bible and even in the cross of Christ. This is the blood that came because he saved you. He died for you. He bore your hell and it burst his heart. This is the blood that saved because. It tells me there was no other way. Thus, I understand why he said, I am the way, the truth and the life. I am the only way. I am the bread of life. All others are thieves and robbers. Now I understand. And it tells me that he did it for me because it's the only hope for me. And it tells me that he did it for me because he's loved me with an everlasting love. I was on his mind when it happened. Here it comes like a Mack truck hitting you multiplied by infinity. Oh no, here it comes. This one's Danny Bond's hell. Oh, now I understand how much he loves me. This is love that a man laid down his life for his friends. But beyond that, he bore my hell, blood and water. Now I know how much he loves me. These words that meant nothing to me for 30 years, though I thank God for the blood of Christ and all of that. Now I know how much he loves me and I know why John put it there to make it really personal for me so that I can never walk away and make a cliche, not ever again. He loves you. He loves you more than you ever could imagine he loves you. He loves you so much he'd bear your eternal hell, condensed, discharged upon him and burst his heart. And he kept taking it until he had borne all of the punishment for every life that it ever lived or will live. And when that was done, then it was done. And the only reason he even could survive to rise from the dead is because he was God. Because when he was done and he said, it's finished. Father into your hands, I commit my spirit. Then the God in him who had been holding that heart together, bowed his head. The Greek says, pillowed his head as though it's finished. It's time. She will be in heaven. And I've secured that he will be in heaven. I've paid the full price. You will be in heaven. Danny will be in heaven. Mark will be in heaven. John will be in heaven. I did it. It's finished. He didn't just bow his head. The Greek says he pillowed it like going to sleep on a soft pillow. Absolute peace. It's done. Oh, father. I come. And you let go and then his heart burst. He was in control of the very end. But his heart burst because of my wrath poured out on him. See how much he loves you. To tell someone we need to get rid of sin and hell and guilt and all of that and just focus on the love of God is to say you don't have a clue what the love of God is. But now you know that God loves you. And now you know why the blood and water came out. And now you know that there was no other way. And now you know that there is no other way. And now we all know that we cannot take out sin and guilt and blood. And now we know that we must preach the full counsel of God. And now we know that we must read our Bibles and we must know these facts and we must come and visit this off in this passage, because these are the facts that save us. My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness. Do you know him? If you don't, what's wrong with you? And who do you think you are? You're going to make it on your own. There's no other way. And what has held you back? Well, I always wanted to be rich and I'm rich. Well, fine. You're not taking one penny with you. You're either going to heaven or hell. Jesus said, What is the profit of man if he gain his whole world and lose his own soul? What is holding you back? I like fornicating with my girlfriend. It's just the greatest thing ever. Yeah, you probably fornicate with other girlfriends, too, because it's empty. Admit it. I live with my girlfriend. We're not married. That's why. I live with my boyfriend. We're not married. Well, then you probably both cheat on each other. Relationship founded on dishonesty and selfishness. Oh, I love my cocaine. Well, it hates you. I love my heroin. Well, King Harry hates you. I love my booze. Your booze will kill you. What is it? If those are the things that hold you back, or you just say, Well, I'm the master of my own destiny. I'm the captain of my own ship. Fine. You will go straight to hell when you die. And if nobody in your whole life ever tells you that, I'll tell you. And, you know, you may go straight to your car and screech out when you leave. Fine. I'm going to chase you with my prayers. How do you get saved? You say this, Jesus, I'm a sinner. Now I know you died for my sin. And I never knew it was this. I never understood it was this. And I believe it. Forgive me for my sin. Give me your righteousness. Give me your free salvation. Save me. Rescue me. Take me to heaven when I die. Don't let me go to hell. And don't let me ignore you anymore here. Let me know you here. That's how you get saved. It happens in here. And it can all be done even without words. It's just yes. Yes. Yes. And you'll swoop right in. If you've never done it, do it now. No to you and yes to him. He'll understand. He knows everything. I'm not eloquent. You don't need to be. He knows everything. You know, Lord, here am I. Yes. He's got you. He loves you. He's crazy about you. He is. He's crazy about you. He loves you. Do you love him? You do. If you know him, you do, because he first loved you. I don't know why. I guess just because. Isn't that glorious? I'm going to go from here and I'm going to have a great day. Because it's done. I can't add to it. It's a free gift. It's done. And I am of all men wealthy and blessed. I'm going to heaven when I die and I'm enjoying it with Christ. Whether that drive a jalopy down here and, you know, eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, if anybody still eats those. I am a wealthy man because of Christ. And so is every person here that knows him. Don't leave here without him. Let's pray. Jesus, thank you for dying for us. Thank you, Jesus, for dying for Danny Bond. Thank you for bearing my sin and my hell. And thank you for saving me, Lord. I am a sinner. I do believe in you. I know you died on the cross for my sin. Take me to heaven when I die. And bring heaven to me here now in my heart. Lead me and guide me, Lord. And I'll follow you all the days of my life. In Jesus' name, amen.