What's The Deal With All The Blood?

“What’s the Deal with all the Blood? Lev 17:1-14”

Gladstone Baptist Church – 9/4/06

The appearance of Blood is never good.

The appearance of Blood is never a good thing!!!! In our society, we don’t like to see blood. When we get a cut, we clean it up and put a band aid on it. I know that this is so it will heal quickly, but because we do this, we are not used to and do not enjoy the sight of blood.

How many people here feel just a bit queasy if they see blood? Not many people enjoy the sight of blood – not real blood anyway. TV blood is fine, but real blood is not. We see it on TV so often, we’ve become desensitized to images of blood, but when it comes to real blood, many of aren’t too sure.

That is because, while blood is quite natural, the sight of blood is not. Blood is supposed to be hidden away under our skin. And the emergence of it signifies that something is wrong. I’ve got a cut, I’ve grazed my elbow, I’ve chopped off my leg, I’ve ruptured my pulmonary artery, or something else bad like that. Blood is good when it is inside, but it is bad when it is outside!!!

Blood is essential to life.

When it is on the inside and flowing around the body, blood is wonderful. In fact, blood is fundamental to our lives and without it, we die.

I want to illustrate the importance of blood very simply by a simple experiment – I need a willing volunteer. Don’t worry, this experiment is going to be conducted under the expert medical supervision of John. I’m going to put on normal blood pressure test kit on your arm and pump it up to about 20mm mercury pressure which should be enough to cut off the circulation of blood flow to your arm. Now I want to you grab John’s arm and squeeze it as hard as you can and hold for 3 seconds, then release it and squeeze again for 3 seconds. Just keep doing that while I talk about the function that blood plays in our body …

Blood carries out a number of important functions …

1. It carries oxygen to every living cell in our body and carries away carbon dioxide

2. It carries away waste material produced by cells in our body. Our blood is constantly cleaning our body.

3. It carries food, electrolytes and vitamins to our cells to nourish them

4. It carries hormones from our around our body to control our responses like blushing

5. It carries antibodies around the body to help defend the body against bacteria and the like.

6. It carries heat around the body to keep our temperature stable.

Ask volunteer : How is your arm feeling?

Without blood flow, the toxins in your arm are building up due to the exercise of your muscles and your muscles will very quickly cramp up and be too painful to use. Explain to us now what you feel when I get John to take the pressure kit off your arm.

Without blood, our whole body would shut down and we would die and that is why blood is so important. Blood is quite literally the life force that keeps us operating. That is why the loss of blood is such a serious thing and probably so disturbing to many of us. You lose your blood and you lose your life.

In the Old Testament, blood was a common sight.

While we rarely see a lot of blood in our lives today, in times gone by, blood flowed freely. In the Old Testament times for example, blood was a common sight. If you looked into the temple or the tabernacle for example, you would be confronted by a real bloody sight.

There would be blood everywhere – all over altar, running down its side & dripping on the ground around it. Priests would be collecting the blood from the sacrifices in containers. It would literally be a slaughter house for hundreds of animals a day. I tried to find out how many animals were killed there today, but I couldn’t find an answer.

We know that every day, there was a morning and evening offering of 2 lambs. On Sabbaths, 2 more lambs were offered and on every new moon, 2 bullocks, 1 ram, 7 lambs and 1 goat was offered. In every case, when the animal was slaughtered, the blood of the animal was drained before it could be burnt as a sacrifice.

During special celebrations, this number increased dramatically. For example during the feast of the unleavened bread, over a week, 14 bullocks, 7 rams, 49 lambs and 7 goats were sacrificed. And over 8 days of the feast of tabernacles, 71 bullocks, 15 rams, 105 lambs and 8 goats were sacrificed – that’s 199 animals.