A Bloodless Gospel Won'T Save a Flea — E.A. Johnston

The Gospel of Blood in Revival History

When I study revival and church history, and when I look at men that God has used in former times, men like George Whitefield, Jonathan Edwards, Charles Spurgeon, Asahel Nettleton, I see that their gospel was a gospel of blood.

Those men preached a bloody cross and a Savior who died there. Even D .O. Moody's gospel was a bloody gospel. It was said of Moody that he once went to a place in Great Britain where he was told by one of the prominent preachers there that it would never do for him to say much about the blood in that place.

Moody told him without hesitation that he would preach it in every sermon, and he magnified atonement through the blood until the whole town was shaken by the power of God. He frequently said that when a preacher ceased to preach the blood, he began to be powerless in his ministry.

The Blood as the Center of Salvation

The great effort of Moody's life was to induce sinners to take shelter under the blood. His sermons on the blood have won thousands to Jesus, but many of today's preachers have gotten out their mop buckets and have cleaned up all the blood and gore around Calvary.

They've made it so pristine you can sit and have your lunch there. But listen, friends, if you want salvation, you must get under the blood. The blood can only wash your sins away. The blood of the Lamb.

The Passover Pattern of Shelter Under the Blood

I want to share a story with you that speaks of this very thing. During a cruel and bloody war, a commander took an oath in the presence of his troops that he would slaughter the entire population of a certain town, and in due course the bloodhounds of war were let loose on the defenseless people.

Now it so happened that a fugitive seeking a shelter saw a number of soldiers as they broke into a house, the inmates of which they put to the sword. On leaving it, one of them dipped a cloth into a pool of blood and splashed it on the door as a token to any who might follow of what had taken place inside.

Quick as his feet could carry him, the poor fugitive sped away to a large house in the center of the town, where a number of his friends were concealed, and breathlessly he told them what he had just witnessed, and at once it flashed upon them what to do.

A goat was in the yard. Immediately it was killed, and its blood splashed on the door, scarcely had they closed the door when a band of soldiers rushed into their street, but when they came to the blood-marked door, they made no attempt to enter.

The sword, so they thought, had already entered therein and performed its work, so while many around them were slain, all within the blood-marked door were saved. And this story, friends, reminds me of the account of the first Passover as given by Moses in Exodus 12,.

And the Lord spake unto Moses, Speak ye unto all the congregation of Israel, saying, They shall take to them every man a lamb, your lamb shall be without blemish, and the whole congregation shall kill it in the evening, and ye shall take up a bunch of hyssop, and dip it in the blood that is in the basin, and strike the lintel and the two side-posts with the blood, and none of you shall go out at the door of his house until the morning, for the Lord will pass through to smite the Egyptians, and when he seeth the blood, the Lord will pass over the door, and will not suffer the destroyer to come into your houses to smite you.

And it came to pass that at midnight the Lord smote all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, and there was a great cry in Egypt, for there was not a house where there was not one dead. But listen, the children of Israel in the shelter of the blood, they were in perfect safety, friends, for the Lord had said, When I see the blood, I will pass over you.

Christ's Blood and Deliverance from Judgment

Today's bloodless gospel won't save a flea. Listen, friends, these words of the story of Exodus apply in all their soul-saving power to faith today. Jesus shed his blood on Calvary, and without that blood which was on that cross, which he shed, then the sword of divine judgment is for everyone who's not under the shelter of that blood.

Let me ask you, friend, have you by faith applied to your own case that precious blood? Have you put yourself under its shelter? That's the only place of safety from the judgment of God. They'll soon break forth upon this dark, sinful world, because he hath appointed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness.

Redemption Through the Precious Blood of Christ

Listen to me, friends, in Peter we read, Ye were not redeemed with corruptible things as silver and gold, but with the precious blood of Christ as a lamb without blemish and without spot. We need to bring back the blood in the gospel.

We need to call sin black and hell hot. We need to point people to a bloody Savior so they can get their sins washed away. Let us take this time now to go to our knees in a time of prayer.