Power In The Blood

Power in the Blood

Hebrews 9:11-15

One of the great truths of the bible is THE POWER IN THE BLOOD

However, we live in a society that does not understand the blood and sees it as a horrible, archaic and barbaric.

If you preach the Angel of Death that delivered Israel by killing the first born… or the OT sacrificial system… they rebel against the thought of the inhumanity.

So we come to the question today… Why is Christianity such a bloody religion?

First understand that we are a product of our society and our society is far removed from the agrarian society of the bible.

In that society people were not squeamish about blood.

It was a natural part of life since they had to kill and butcher their own meat.

Also, because warfare was hand to hand and very personal… people were accustomed to seeing human blood spilled.

There were no hospitals to keep blood neat and isolated from everyday life.

So… people in bible times were not repulsed by the sight or thought of blood.

For that reason, God was able to use blood and the shedding of blood as more of a teaching aid.

It was not socially unacceptable to kill animals… it was natural.

When did it start?

In the Garden… In the first two chapters of the Bible you read the creation of the universe.

And in chapter 3, IMMEDIATELY after the creation of man and woman… you have SIN!

Humanity was marred, his relationship with his creator/God was broken, his happiness was destroyed and his future was doomed.

What did God do? He began the process of restoring man to himself, restoring his happiness and giving him an eternal future.

How? BLOOD! God shed innocent blood to cover the sin.

Notice what man (Adam and Eve) did… they HID their sin

Man still does that today

They hide their sin in denial

They hide their sin with excuses

They hide their sin by running away

From whom did they hide their sin?

From God… not possible

From self… to assuage the guilt

What did God do?

He dealt with their sin in a more permanent way

HE SHED THE BLOOD OF INNOCENT ANIMALS

From the beginning we see the principle:

The wages of sin is death… (Rm 6:23)

“Without the shedding of blood there is no remission” (Heb 9:22)

From there we begin the BLOODY TRAIL of the Gospel

You can trace the trail throughout the Old and New Testaments

The next stop on the trail is in Genesis 22 when God tests Abraham by commanding him to kill his only son, Isaac.

God delivers Isaac, but he delivers him through the blood of the lamb, which God provided.

God provided a lamb, whose head was caught in the thorns. That lamb died so Isaac could live.

That was a witness to Jesus… the Lamb of God, the only son of God, who wore a crown of thorns, and died so we could live.

Abraham learned the lesson of the bloody trail

The next stop on the trail is in Exodus 12… the Passover

God tells his people to kill an animal and paint the doorposts and the lentil with the blood and all who are inside will be safe from the death angel.

It was a night of horror and mourning as hundreds and thousands of first born sons died because they were not protected by the blood.

But God confirmed the truth of the blood…

Sin brings death

The only cure for the sin is the blood

The next stop on the trail is Isaiah 1:10-17 where the sacrifice has become so ritualistic that it has lost its meaning, its power and it became a burden to God rather than a joy.

Israel had become a ritual religion… not a vital relationship with their God, and God was tired of their hypocritical offerings

The blood was being shed in rivers but having no effect

It was unfulfilling to God because He had His eyes on a better sacrifice, a better Lamb that would put an end to the gushing of ritualistic, meaningless sacrifice.

Then one day, when the time was just right… maybe all the ritual God could handle… God offered the perfect sacrifice… the sacrifice to end all sacrifices… His only begotten Son, Jesus came to die on the cross as the eternal and only sacrifice for sin.

The OT sacrifice could not do the trick… could not bring satisfaction to man or to God

Man was dissatisfied because they had to do it over and over

God was not satisfied because it never truly satisfied His righteousness

The only person satisfied was SATAN… people still lost

Satan knew the truth of scripture… the wages of sin is death

He gloried in it… he loved it