Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2951
“Without shedding of blood is no remission.” Hebrews 9:22.
WEEK after week, standing before this congregation to preach the things concerning the Kingdom of Christ, I sometimes say to myself, “I wonder how much longer I shall have to point out to some of these people the way of salvation before they will walk in it—I wonder how many times I shall have to preach to them the Doctrine of Justification by Faith in the Crucified Christ of Calvary and how often I shall have to urge them to an immediate decision for Christ, the renunciation of their self-confidence and the forsaking of their sins?” It seems to me that after I have done this, the right thing for me to do is to keep on asking you, “Have you given due attention to these Truth of God? Do you know them in your soul?” For, “if you know these things, happy are you if you do them,” but the very opposite of happy are you if you leave them undone!
I am going to try to enlist the attention of any earnest, thoughtful persons who are here, any of those who are still unconverted, but who have begun to consider their ways and to turn unto the Lord. To you, dear Friends, I mean to preach nothing but the simple Gospel of Jesus Christ—and not to preach it as though I were addressing the settlers in Australia or the pundits of Hindustan—but to preach it distinctly to you and to urge you to accept it here and now. If you have not accepted it by the time the sermon is done, it shall be through no fault of mine—the blame must lie at your own door, that you have been directed to the way of salvation, but have not walked in it—or that, having heard the Gospel and taken some interest in it, you have willfully rejected it.
The subject of my discourse is to be the remission—the putting away and getting rid of sin—and that concerns every one of us, from the youngest child to the oldest man or woman, for we are all sinners. It is very common for people to say, “Oh, yes, we are all sinners!” But I do not use that expression as they do. I mean that you have done wrong and that I have done wrong and that we have, all of us, done wrong! “We have done the things which we ought not to have done and we have left undone the things which we ought to have done, and there is no health in us.” We have chosen the wrong instead of the right. We have chosen to please ourselves rather than to please God. We have even lived as if there were no God! If there had really been no God, our conduct might not have been materially affected. We have all sinned in some way or other—
“EEach wandering in a different way, But all the downward road.”
And, dear Friends, we all of us need to be cleansed from this sin. There is not one among us who can afford to live in sin, or who can afford to die in sin. We may find a temporary pleasure in it, but it must end in eternal loss to us unless there comes a time when God’s Grace saves us from it—we cannot be truly happy while we are out of gear with God. And since we are immortal beings and our soul will not die, but will live on forever, there will come a time in which the sin which is unforgiven will be a sore plague to us. So it is vitally important that we should enquire whether, being sinners, we have been forgiven or not!
I hope I shall be able to reach the conscience of each person here while I try to talk to you about two contrasts. First we have, in our text, sin unremitted and sin remitted. And then, secondly, we have without shedding of blood and with shedding of blood.
I. So, first, we will consider these two things which are so opposite to each other—SIN UNREMITTED AND SIN REMITTED.
The Apostle says, “Without shedding of blood is no remission.” I do not like the sound of those words, “no remission” They seem to me like a funeral knell—“no remission.” That might have been the sound in the ears of every sinner from the time of Adam until now—“no remission.” It would have made this world a dreadful prison if everywhere, when we sat down to think of our sin, there stared us in the face the words, “no remission.” This is, indeed, one of the inscriptions across the vault of Hell—“no remission,” “no remission.” I say that I cannot bear the sound of those words, yet they must be sounded aloud, for there are still some persons to whom they apply. I trust that the sounding of those words in their ears may be the means of their awakening!
What does it mean when we say that a man has sinned and that there is no remission for him? It means, first, that he is the object of the daily anger of God. God has a benevolent regard for him as one of His creatures and is not willing that he should perish. God would infinitely prefer that the sinner should turn to Him and live, but, viewing him as an impenitent sinner, we read that “God is angry with the wicked every day.” I have learned not to take much notice of other people’s opinions, yet I do not like to make anybody angry if I can help it. If I have ever done so—and sometimes it has happened unintentionally—I have had no pleasure in reflecting that someone was angry with me. And if it was somebody who would not be angry without a cause, it has been a very painful thing to live under a consciousness of his displeasure. I want you whose sins are unforgiven, to reflect that God is angry with you every day. When He looks upon you, He cannot regard you as a father regards a dear child who has done everything he can to please him, but He must look upon you as a rebel—as one who has revolted against Him and defied Him to His face. When He looks upon your sin, His anger must flame forth. A man who is not angry with sin must be a guilty man and, in proportion to the holiness of God must be his abhorrence of evil.