The Old Bloodstained Cross

Some of you older saints remember a time in our churches, back years ago, where we sang about the blood. We got out our old hymn books and sang the old hymns that centered around the blood. Hymns like, There is power, power, a wonder working power, in the precious blood of the lamb.

And, there is a fountain, filled with blood, drawn from Emmanuel's veins, and sinners plunge beneath that flood, lose all their guilty stains. And of course, my favorite old hymn, What can wash away my sins, nothing but the blood of Jesus. Now, if you notice, friends, those old hymns were full of the old gospel.

They called sin, sin, and declared that all sinners need a substitute for sin. That if you want to get to heaven, then you must get under the blood. And some of you older saints remember a time in our churches, when pastors preached about a bloody cross and a blood-stained savior.

And I bet you remember how folks would come under conviction of sin, under such preaching, as they preached up a crucified Christ. I recall hearing an older evangelist about 30 years ago. I don't recall the old boy's name, but I'll never forget his message.

He began in Genesis and ended his message in Revelation. And the whole time, he preached about the blood. He said he had a friend in the hospital, who was dying from blood poisoning.

And then he went on to relate that all men who were born into this world were born with a poison in their blood because of Adam's sin. And because we each had this poison in the blood, we needed a remedy from sin in the person of Christ Jesus. And throughout his entire message, this older evangelist just kept on preaching up the blood, like he was shooting a shotgun at you, and you couldn't help from getting hit.

When this man ended his message, the power of God descended on that church, and that congregation were frozen in their seats for over an hour as they wept and dealt with their sins. I was there with two friends, and we'd driven a long way out into the country to hear this evangelist preach, and it was midnight, and we were still sitting in that sanctuary because the presence of God was so thick, you needed a machete to cut your way out of that church. Now why in the world did our churches let the world in and stop preaching and singing about the blood? I believe there are three reasons for this.

Number one, churches decided to kill off the weekly prayer meeting and replace it with social groups. Oh, they still meet during the week, but they meet in cell groups for Bible study and fellowship, and if there's a prayer meeting, very little time is given to prayer because it's just another opportunity for the pastor to preach. I'm telling you, friends, when we killed off the old-fashioned prayer meeting, that's when things began to go south in our churches.

Number two, our seminary started to crank out graduates who knew their Bibles, but they didn't know how to preach. They don't teach you how to preach in seminary. They teach you how to teach, and there's a difference.

Seminaries weren't turning out preachers anymore, but teachers. Number three, in an effort to expand our campuses, we changed our message so not to offend anyone. We quit preaching on sin and hell and repentance and in the process, we got out our mop buckets and cleaned up all the blood around Calvary.

You don't need to preach up the blood when you're not preaching against sin. Well, when that old-time evangelist centered his sermon on the blood, God honored it with his presence, and that church body came under Holy Spirit conviction. But we don't know much about that today.

We get by with a man-centered program meant to occupy and entertain. We sing happy songs that we can clap our hands to and sway our hips to with the pounding rhythm of the worship band. Aren't we a church to have a good time? We have to make sure we give folks a good time so they'll want to come back and bring a friend so they can clap and laugh and socialize and call a church on Sunday morning.

We've seemed to have pushed out of our churches the one who was born in another man's stable, whose first companions were cattle and his last thieves. We bypassed the bloody cross on which he died for sin and we're silent about his spent blood on that blood-stained cross. We just inform folks that God loves them and he wants them to go to heaven and all you have to do is believe in Jesus.

We've made the cross so pristine why you can sit there and have your lunch. But 1 Peter declares, Ye were not redeemed with corruptible things as silver and gold from your vain conversation, received by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ. And the Bible says in Hebrews, Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us.

In Acts I read, To feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood. And in Revelation we see, Have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Listen, friends, until the church returns to preaching messages on the blood and a bloody cross and the sinner's need for a substitute for sin through a blood-stained Savior whose blood will wash away the guilt of sins then we'll keep on amusing and entertaining our people with the hope of seeing more of them next time.

I want to close this message with a story that sums up what I've been preaching about. Many years ago, in the city of Memphis, Tennessee, an event occurred which still haunts me. There's a big Baptist church in that town there whose former pastor was Dr. R.G. Lee who was known for his famous sermon, Payday Someday.

Well, there was a member of Dr. Lee's congregation, an attorney, who had to be out of town on business frequently. But no matter where this lawyer went, he made sure to catch the train back to Memphis on Saturday night so he could listen to R.G. Lee preach on Sunday. Why, he loved to hear that man preach.

Well, this lawyer got cancer and he was in the hospital dying and he called for his pastor to come to his bedside. Dr. Lee entered the hospital room whose window overlooked the Mississippi River. The lawyer told R.G. Lee, I want you to know how much I've enjoyed your preaching through the years and I never missed a Sunday if I could help it.

I lie here a-dying with only a few weeks to live and I want to reprimand you, sir, for never telling me how to be saved. You never preached the cross to where I could see it. You never put the blood out there where I could reach it.

I am dying and I will surely die in my sins and I chastise you, sir, for your lack of preaching the old gospel. R.G. Lee left that man's hospital room with his head down, feeling berated and guilty as charged. It was now dark outside as he walked down to the banks of the Mississippi River.

There he got down on his knees in the mud, getting his white suit pants dirty in the process, and he rolled up his sleeves and dipped both his hands in the dark, muddy river. He knelt there a while, reflecting on what this dying man had told him, and right there and then he promised God from that point forward he would preach the cross and the blood. And there on his knees, beside that mighty river, he changed his message that night.

And in three weeks' time there was a move of grace in that church and three blocks of downtown Memphis was shaken with revival. Listen, friends, it wasn't too late for R.G. Lee to humble himself before God and by God's grace change his message to reach sinners and to bring them to the cross so Christ could save them. How about you, brother pastor? Are you willing to risk your reputation by calling sin black and hell hot and holding up a blood-stained cross with a crucified Christ who died there for our dirty, rotten sins? The heart that cares for the souls of men will warn men to flee from the wrath to come and to come to a blood-stained Savior who died so we may live.

Let us pray.