The Weight Of Glory And The Stain Of Blood

Sermon: The Weight of Glory and the Stain of Blood

Text: Acts 20:26

"Wherefore I take you to record this day, that I am pure from the blood of all men."

Introduction: The Echo on the Shore

Let us travel back in time. Do not picture a polished pulpit or listen for a gentle organ prelude. Instead, feel the damp, salty air on your skin. Hear the cries of gulls mingling with the sound of grown men weeping, unashamedly. We are on the beach at Miletus. A ship, bobbing in the harbor, is waiting to steal away a beloved father in the faith, knowing they will never see his face again in this life (Acts 20:38). The Apostle Paul, a man whose body is a roadmap of his ministry-scarred by rods, stones, and shipwrecks-is kneeling on the sand, surrounded by the elders of the Ephesian church. These are not mere acquaintances; they are his sons in the ministry, men he has poured three years of his life into, day and night, "with many tears" (Acts 20:19). This is his final, raw, and desperate impartation.

And in the heart of this tear-soaked farewell, he rises to his feet, looks into their eyes, and makes a legal, public, and astonishing appeal. He is not just speaking; he is entering a testimony into the eternal record. "Wherefore I take you to record this day"-he is calling them as witnesses for the prosecution or the defense when he stands before the judgment seat of Christ-"that I am pure from the blood of all men." What a staggering statement! This is not the casual claim of a man with a clean slate. This is the cry of a soul that has wrestled with the terrifying weight of spiritual accountability. To understand this cry, we must understand that for Paul, the world was haunted by the echo of blood-the blood of the unwarned, the blood of the untaught, the blood of the eternally lost. And his singular, driving passion was to be found unstained. This morning, let us go deeper and feel the full weight of Paul's words. Let us examine the anatomy of this spiritual bloodguilt, the divine antidote he administered, and the ultimate cost of a conscience so profoundly clear.

I. The Ancient Stain: An Anatomy of Bloodguilt

The concept of "bloodguilt" was no mere figure of speech for Paul's audience. It was a thread woven deep into the fabric of their spiritual DNA, stretching back to the very dawn of human history. It begins in Genesis 4, where the blood of murdered Abel is not silent. It possesses a voice; it "crieth unto me from the ground," God says to Cain. Innocent blood defiles the land and cries out for justice. This principle is then codified in the Mosaic Law. In Numbers 35, the "revenger of blood" is an established role, and the land itself can be polluted by the shedding of innocent blood, a stain that can only be cleansed by the blood of the one who shed it. Guilt was not just an individual feeling; it was a corporate reality, a stain upon the community.

This is the backdrop for the prophet Ezekiel. When God calls him a "watchman," He is tapping into this deep, primal fear of being stained by the blood of another. The watchman's silence is not passive; it is an act of participation in destruction. His inaction pulls the trigger. The blood of the slain is, quite literally, transferred to his hands. He becomes a spiritual accessory to murder.

This is the terror that gripped the Apostle Paul. He saw the world through this lens. Every person without Christ was standing in the path of a divine judgment far more terrible than any invading army. Every soul was teetering on the brink of an eternal abyss. And as a watchman for their souls, he knew that a polite silence, a convenient omission, or a softened truth would be tantamount to pushing them over the edge. His declaration, "I am pure from the blood of all men," is his solemn testimony that he did not collaborate with the second death. He fought against it with every fiber of his being.

II. The Unshirkable Counsel: God's Grand Purpose Revealed

What, then, was this mighty antidote that cleansed Paul's hands and conscience? What was the trumpet blast he sounded? He answers with breathtaking clarity: "For I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God." (Acts 20:27).

The Greek word for "counsel" here is boule. It doesn't just mean "advice" or "a list of doctrines." It means a purpose, a plan, a sovereign design. Paul is saying, "I laid before you the entire, eternal, unfolding purpose of Almighty God for the redemption of the world." This is the same word he uses in Ephesians 1, when he says God has made known to us the "mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure (boule) which he hath purposed in himself."