The Blood of Jesus

Sermon by De Witt Talmage, 18th Century Presbyterian Preacher

"The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin."I John 1:7.
I know that circumstances sometimes aggravate one's transgressions. If a child unwittingly does
wrong you easily forgive him; but we have done wrong, and we knew we were doing wrong.
Every time man sins conscience rings the funeral bell. We may pretend not to hear it, we may put
our fingers in our ears and try to go away from that sound; but having transgressed, although we
may have our fingers in our ears, we will hear the word coming," The wages of sin is death. The
soul that sinneth, it shall die. The way of the transgressor is hard." When you and I do wrong,
when we have said that which we ought not to have said, when we have done that which we
ought not to have done, we knew it, we knew it. I can come to the man who declares he is the
worst man on earth, and I can preach the Gospel with just as much confidence to him as to this
man who has all his life preserved his integrity. Oh, the broadness of this Gospel that says,
Whosoever, whosoever! However far you have wandered away from God you can come back,
though you have gone through all the sins of the Decalogue. Whosoever, whosoever will, let
him come."
" Oh," says some man, all that is very true for immoral people, but I have been a moral man all
my life, and I don't need the gracious pardon." Have your thoughts always been right? Would
you like to have the thoughts of the last fifteen years written out and presented before the eye of
the world? No. And if you would not want the thoughts of the last fifteen years all written out
before the eye of the world, certainly you could not stand the divine scrutiny. Now, there is my
right hand, and there is my left hand. You see the one just as plainly as the other. Well now, the
sin of the heart and the sin of the life are as plain before God, the one as the other, and a thought
to Him is just as plain as an action. Ah! You need the pardon of the Gospel.
You say you have never committed this, and you have never committed that, and you would not
have done as this man did, and you would not as this man have gone astray in this direction, and
as that man in another direction. Why, my brother, whether you know it or not, you have gone
astray in many directions. You say you have never committed murder. How do you know? Have
you ever hated anybody?
Yes. Then you are a murderer. The Bible says so. Christ says so. He that hateth his brother is a
murderer." Do you hate anybody now? Is there anybody in all the earth you hate now? You are a
murderer. He that hateth his brother is a murderer." So, my brother, you are not as pure as you
thought you were, you are not as good as you thought you were, if you say you have no sin to be
forgiven. You say you have never committed theft. I do not suppose you have ever wronged your
fellow-man, but have you taken an hour of a day from God and devoted it to wrong purposes? If
you have, then you have been guilty of robbing God. It is a mean thing to steal from a man. It is
a worse thing to steal from God. The Bible cries out, Will a man rob God? Yes; we have all
robbed Him. Now, let us come to confessional, and let us acknowledge that we need the mercy
and the pardon of God. We all need it; there is not an exception.All have sinned and come short
of the glory of God. There is none that doeth good, no, not one."

Just let me blow the trumpet of resurrection, and let the sins of the best man in this houseall
the sins of his past lifecome up. Let the larger sin of the hundred be captain of the company,
and let the greater sin of the thousand be colonel of the regiment, and let the mightiest sin of his
life command the forces, vast as those of Xerxes, vaster, vaster. All the sins of that man's life
coming down upon him.
One man against a million transgressions, what chance has he? Where in the round of God's
mercy is there any help for us? Rise, you seas, and whelm the host. Strike, you lightning, and
consume the foe. The wave rolls back from the beach, and says, No help in me." The lightning
sheathes itself in the black scabbard of the midnight cloud, and says, No help in me." Yonder I
see the rider on the white horse. Make way for the courier. He swings his sword. It is the captain
of salvation come for our rescue. Fall back, my sins. Fall back, my sorrows. All the
transgressions of my heart and life are utterly scattered, and I cry, Victory through our Lord
Jesus Christ! Oh, what a Christ he is. Do you wonder that men and women have died for Him?
Do you wonder that Margaret, the Scotch girl, would not give up her Lord when fastened down
to the beach of the sea, and the persecutors thought, as the waves rolled on, she would give up
her Christ? But fastened down at the beach when the tide was out, she continued in prayer until
the tide came up, came to the ankles, came to the girdle, came to the shoulder, came to the lip,
and with her last utterance she said, My Lord, my God! He has been so good to me; I cannot
surrender Him now, though the waves may go over memy Lord, my Christ, my pardon, my
peace," and the waves rolled over her.
Do you wonder that men and women and children have died for such a Lord as this? Oh, do you
not want His consolation as well as pardon? How many of you have had misfortunes and trials,
and you want this Christ. Oh, when those into whose bosom we have breathed our sorrows are
snatched away, Christ's heart still beats; and when all other lights go out we see coming out from
behind the cloud something that we cannot at first tell what it is, but it gets brighter and brighter,
and we find it is the star, the star of hope, the star of consolation, the star of Jesus! Oh, there are
different kinds of hands. There is the hand of care that opens hard on you, and there is the hand
of bereavement that snatched your loved ones away from you, and there is the hand of
temptation that strikes you back into darkness; but there is a hand so different from all these, and
it is so kind, and it is so gentle. It is the hand that wipeth away all tears from all eyesit is the
hand of Jesus. Do you not want Him? Would you not like to have that pardon to-day? Would you
not like to have His comfort?
As at the sea beach we join hands and go down and bathe, and let the waters roll over us, and we
feel great exhilaration, I wish we could by scores and hundreds and thousands to-day just join
hands, and wade down in this great Atlantic of God's forgivenessnot standing on the margin
paddling the ripples with our feet, but wading clear down in the sea and letting the crimson
billows roll over us. Oh, you must have this Christ! If you reject Him, all those gaping wounds
will plead against you, and they will haunt you through eternity with the thought of what you
might have been. Oh, take your feet out of your Brother's blood! Do not go down condemned for
fratricide and regicide and deicide. Do not do it! Better for thee that Calvary had never borne its
burden, and better for thee that those loving lips had never uttered an invitation, if, rejecting all,
you go down into desolation and darkness, your, hands and feet bedabbled with the blood of the
Son of God. O dying but immortal men, O judgment-bound hearers, repent, believe, and live!
How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation?

There will be a password at the gate of heaven! See a great multitude coming up, and they say,
Make way, open the gate, let us in, we were honored on earth; we had a great position in the
world, and we want a great position in heaven." But the gate-keeper says, I never knew you."
Here come another throng. They say, We did a great many magnanimous things, we endowed
colleges, we established schools, and we were celebrated for our philanthropies. Open the gate
now. Let us come in and get our reward." A voice from within says, I never knew you." But here
come up a great throng, thousands and tens of thousands, and they knock at the gate. They say :
We were wanderers from God, and we deserved to die, but we heard the voice of Jesus."Aye,"
says the gate-keeper, that is the passwordJesus, Jesus, Jesus! Lift up your heads, ye
everlasting gates, and let them come in."