Michael Koulianos emphasizes the transformative power of the blood of Jesus in his sermon 'The Stain of the Blood.' He illustrates the importance of turning to God and recognizing the weight of sin, which enslaves and deceives us. Koulianos passionately invites listeners to respond to God's love and grace, urging them to give their lives to Jesus and experience true freedom from sin. He highlights that while sin is a stubborn stain, the blood of Jesus is even more powerful, capable of cleansing and renewing us completely. The sermon culminates in a heartfelt call for repentance and acceptance of Christ's sacrifice, encouraging all to embrace the life-changing presence of God.

Speaking to one of my children today, I was talking to them and they were looking the other way. And I said, would you look at me while I'm talking to you? They said, Dad, I can hear you. I said, yeah, but I enjoy it when you look at me while I'm talking to you. And I said, I'll talk to you if you look at me. So is the Lord. The Bible says that Moses turned to see the bush that was burning. In fact, first it says that he looked at the bush and turned to see. You can't see unless you're willing to at least look. Then the voice of the Lord came out of that fiery presence, the glory of the Lord. God wants us to look at him when he talks to us. The Lord is going to speak to us now as you look at him. As I'm preaching, I'm going to take the next ten minutes to speak to your soul. And while I'm speaking, I have this sense that you don't even need my altar call, but many of you are going to feel compelled to just come down and give everything to Jesus while I'm talking. I feel that. I feel the cords of love, the magnetic pull of the Lord. He's irresistible. Who's like him? Who else makes you feel this way? Those of you at home, don't hesitate tonight in giving your life to Jesus. That wonderful presence you feel in your room, so different in the world, that's filled with fear and hatred, division and confusion. Now everything just feels right in his glory. Don't resist the one who's filling your house right now with himself. That's his love. He's reaching out to you. I've talked to you about this before, but I felt to do it again. Jesus said, Most assuredly I say to you, whoever sins is a slave to sin. Sin is a slave master that you can be free from tonight. Completely free. You see most of the West comes to a prayer. But Jesus said, Come unto me. And the Jesus I'm talking about is not a far off. He's in the room tonight. He's right here. He said, If you would gather together in my name, two or three, I would be there even in the midst of you. This wonderful sense of God we feel is Jesus in the midst by the Holy Spirit. Tonight, you will not have the opportunity to reject my message or accept my message. Tonight, the opportunity is being presented to you to reject or accept Jesus who is in the room. Right? You're going to have to walk past the one who has holes in his body today and choose the world. He's that close. Sin is a slave master. Sin sickens us. The Bible says, A sound heart is life to the body, but envy is rottenness to the bones. Psalm 34 says this, Blessed is the one whose sin the Lord does not count against them and in whose spirit is no deceit. The Lord can reach into the depths of your being, which is your dead spirit, and make it true. When I kept silent, verse 3 says, my bones wasted away. When we refuse to confess our sin, it actually rots the bones physically. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me. Many of you in this room feel the wonderful but convicting weight of the Lord's hand on you. And you're going to have to try to run away tonight. I wouldn't. If you're like me when I was 12 years old and walked into a meeting like this, I wondered, Can I take you home with me, Lord? Can I take what's in this room? Can we do this all the time? And I discovered that I could be with him all the time. Sin is no toy. It is certainly not an experiment. Jesus said, If your hand or foot causes you to sin, cut it off. Cast it from you. It is better for you to enter into life lame or maimed rather than having two hands and two feet and to be cast into the everlasting fire. If your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it from you. These are extreme words. It is better for you to enter into life with one eye than to have two eyes and be cast into hellfire. So serious is sin that Jesus said, If your eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. He said, If your hand or foot causes you to sin, cut it off. Friend, in all the love I can harness right now, I want to say this. Sin will send you to hell. Sin doesn't give you a bad day. It gives you a horrific eternity. And the Bible says that God did not create hell for us but for the devil and his angels. Sin deceives us. Hebrews 3.13 says, But encourage one another daily as long as it is called today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin's deceitfulness. Sin hardens us and deceives us to the degree that we don't think it's a big deal and we don't even think God can see it. Ultimately leads us down a path of becoming our own God. As we begin to determine what is right, what is wrong and ultimately tell God what he wants. Sin kills. Genesis 2.16 and 17 For in the day you eat of that fruit, you shall surely die. Romans 6.23 For the wage of sin is death. But the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ the Lord. Please look me in the eye. Adam didn't die until he was over 900 years old physically. But the moment he turned his affection from the presence of the Lord, ate of that fruit, he died. It just took a while for his body to catch up. Jesus said to him, In the day you eat of this, you will die. It tells me something. You may be sitting in your seat tonight saying, I'm not dead, I'm right here. If you don't have Jesus, you're as dead as a doornail. You don't have to be. I guess my question to you tonight would be, What would you like to choose in place of the Lord? Do you feel safe in the world? Do you trust the world system? Do you trust what you read? Do you trust what you hear? Are you going to stake your life on politicians and governments who hate one another? Who change like the wind? Do you realize entire armies and kingdoms and regimes have made this book enemy number one? Yet this book is here today and those armies are in the grave. Do you have a better option? A better savior? A better religion? Every one of their leaders is decaying in the dust. The nations have conveniently not been able to find the body of the most famous human to ever grace the earth. This is no ordinary man. This is forgotten man. Sin is a stubborn stain. Come now and let us reason together. Isaiah writes, Though your sins are like scarlet they shall be white as snow. Though they are red like crimson they shall be as wool. You can't remove that stain. I cannot remove my own sin. I cannot. There is no detergent that will get rid of it. There's no conference. There's no church. There's no ministry. No album. No record. No download. No streaming system that can remove this stain. No self-help seminar. You can't declare it away. You can't think it away. You can't dream it away. You can't even prophesy your stain away. It's a stubborn stain. But I know of a substance of that too is crimson. I know of a holy crimson substance. I feel the Lord. That is heaven's magnet. I know of a substance that the Holy Spirit loves to descend upon. For they bear witness of one another. I know of a substance that speaks a better word. I know of a substance that cries out today that is on the mercy seat of heaven. The substance is the blood of Jesus that is more stubborn than the stain of sin. For once you've been marked, you are marked forever. The Bible says if every devil, if height and depth and every principality and everyone who hates you and every word of accusation appeared before the throne, Romans teaches us, and accused the ones who are marked with the blood, God would never separate His love from us. The blood of Jesus. But we are all like an unclean thing, Isaiah writes again in Isaiah 64, and all our righteousness are like filthy rags. We all fade as a leaf, friend. Life, you maybe perhaps think that this is just going to go on forever, but I never thought I'd be 43. I just feel like it was yesterday, I was in high school. We all fade as a leaf, and our iniquities like the wind have taken us away. What is Isaiah saying? Life is short, and our own righteousness is a filthy rag in the eyes of God. Tonight, you have the choice that will determine your eternity. Absolutely, it is that clear, and that serious, and that wonderful. Jesus came to the earth, born of a virgin, lived a perfect life, a sinless life, not only for you, but as you, as your representative. He identified with you. He fulfilled the law on your behalf, because you could not. He took all of your sin, past, present, and future, not just what you do, but every fallen thought. Jesus took the sin we commit when we do the right thing for the wrong reason. He took everything that wasn't true, through act, deed, thought, and motive, for every person in the history of the world, took it upon his body, fulfilled the law on their behalf, the law that no man could fulfill, and then nailed that sin to the tree when he became our sin. And when he died, the power of our sin died. And I'm not merely talking about the symptoms of your sin, I'm talking about your nature. That thing in you that resists God. It goes your own way. The scripture says, we all like sheep have gone astray. Do you want to know what astray is? It's found in the next line. We have gone our own way. The most astray you can go, is to go your own way. If you go your own way, friend, hear me well, you go the devil's way. The devil loves our independence. The children of the Lord are dependent. For it's in him we live, in him we move, and in him we have our being. Tonight you have a choice to make. Perhaps never ever again, will you be in a room that is so charged with the glory of God. And God is reaching out to you, wanting you. How will you respond tonight? With every head bowed and eye closed. You say, Michael, I want to live the Christian life that I always dreamed about living. I want to be free from sin. I want to be completely made brand new. I no longer want to be a slave. God sees everything, friend. He sees it all. And you can be free. You can be completely free today. And the stain of sin will be forever removed and replaced by the glorious stain of the blood of Jesus. You say, Michael, that's me. I want you to slip your hand up. I'd like everyone to stand. Everyone stand. If you raised your hand, listen carefully, or you wish you did. And by the way, if you brought someone tonight, and you know they need Jesus, if you as their friend are wondering, I mean, you know them. You know what their life looks like. You know whether or not they're burning. I want you to look at them right now. Right now. Go ahead and do it. It's time the church steps out in boldness. Look at them right now. You didn't come, you didn't bring them to just enjoy some nice little Easter gathering, as you discovered. We're a little bizarre around here. I want you to look them in the eye and say, do you need to get down there? I'll go with you. If you raised your hand, or you wish you did, children, listen carefully. If you're in the room, and your heart, your heart is being moved, and you're saying, I want to give my life to Jesus. I want you to look at your parents right now and say, mom and dad, I want to give my life to Jesus. If you are any of those people, you raised your hand, or you wish you did, I want you to get down here now. Come on. Come on. It's wonderful, Lord. It's wonderful, Lord. You come close. You come close. Come on. This is beautiful. You come close. You come close. Thank you, Father. Come to the beautiful, beautiful Savior. He's still coming. He's still coming. Young and old, young and old, they're coming. Come. Come give your life to the Lord. Come give your life to the Lord. God has not forgotten you. Listen to me. Those of you, keep blessing the Lord. Those of you who feel like you're too far gone, God has not forgotten you. You come to the Lord tonight. He will set you free. Every addict, every person addicted to porn, whatever it might be, you don't have to lead the same way. Come give your life to Jesus tonight. This is what he does. This is who he is. He sets the captive free. Thank you, Father. Come. They're coming. Come. Give your life to Jesus. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Oh, come on. All of heaven rejoices. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. They're still coming. You come. Come close. Thank you, Father. They come straight up, fall on their knees. It's wonderful. It's wonderful. Isn't he great? And greatly to be praised. We're going to begin praying right now. Everyone who's come forward, would you look me in the eye, please? Tonight, you're going to simply give your life to the Lord. I'm not asking you to bring God, your perfection. There is no one perfect here but the Lord himself. You bring the Lord your filth, your stain. All he asks for is you. The Lord did tell us to count the cost and this is the cost. Everything. I can't tell you anything but what he said, he wants everything. So all of you who've come forward, are you willing to give Jesus everything? Can you acknowledge that? Yes or no? Are you willing to give the Lord everything? As you give the Lord your life, the Lord will wipe away every sin forever and never remind you of it again. Never, never. Not one time. Well, he said, you remember what you did back in 2020? It's gone. The Bible says it will be removed and separated as far as east is from the west. Are you ready to receive him? Church, are we going to stand with him now? I want us all to pray this. I want our church to lift their hand or to stretch their hands, I should say, toward them. In our hearts, this is the posture of our hearts. Are you ready? That they will live a victorious Christian life. Never a day away from the Lord. For those of you who've come forward, I want you to lift your hands to the Lord. Just offering your life to Jesus. And we're going to pray this out loud with clarity and boldness. We believe in our heart and confess with our mouth. Are you ready? You ready, church? Isn't this wonderful? Let's pray. Heavenly Father, I come to you tonight having sinned against you. I confess my sin. Forgive my sin. Wash me in the blood of Jesus. Jesus, I believe that you came to the earth and lived a perfect life. That you suffered and died on that precious cross. That you were buried and raised from the dead three days later. You are the Son of God, God Almighty, the Savior of my soul. Jesus, I believe that you ascended to the right hand of the Father. And that you are returning again to rule and reign as King of kings and Lord of lords. Receive my life. Here we go now. This is this precious moment. Say, Jesus, take my life as I receive your life. Come and live in my heart. I repent. I turn from the world. I renounce Satan. And I renounce my own will. I hand my life to you. Me for you. You for me. Come and live in my heart. I am a child of God. I am born again. Amen. Give the Lord praise. No, come on. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Lord.