Faith and Duty: Sermons on Free Texts, with Reference to the Church-YearBuchheimer, L. B. (Louis Balthaser)
Religion
Faith and Duty: Sermons on Free Texts, with Reference to the Church-Year
Buchheimer, L. B. (Louis Balthaser)
Church year sermons; Lutheran Church -- Sermons; Sermons, American
There is, however, one point still that practically and to each of
us is the most important of all. It is not said simply: "I will
pass over you," but, "When I see the blood, I will pass over you."
It was not enough that the paschal lamb had been slain. Nor was it
sufficient that the Most High Lamb merely purpose to spare them as
His chosen people. If they would escape the calamity that was to
fall upon their heathen oppressors, they must sprinkle the blood
of that lamb openly on the posts of their doors. And even so it is
not enough that God will have all men to be saved and come unto
the knowledge of the truth; not enough that the Lamb of God was
slain to take away the sins of a guilty world, unless that blood is
sprinkled by faith on the heart, unless, in other words, Christ is
taken by each separately and individually as his or her Savior. It
is faith which forms the grand connecting link between the priceless
blessings of redemption and the perishing sinner's soul. What avails
it to the wretch who is being borne down by a rapid current nearer
and nearer to the fatal cataract to throw him a rope if he will not
grasp it? Or what to him whose dwelling is in flames, to place a
ladder for his rescue, if he will not so much as step upon it? Even
so, what will it serve any of us, but only fearfully to heighten
our condemnation, to be told of the great salvation, and have that
salvation pressed on us in almost every form of persuasive appeal,
as the only means of escape from death and destruction, if we still
refuse to it the homage of our hearts, and deem ourselves perfectly
safe without, and treat it as an idle tale?
Christ's blood has been shed, but before it can work its wonders,
can stay the arm of divine Justice uplifted to smite, that blood
must be sprinkled, too; and the reason why it is not sprinkled on
some, why it is not sprinkled on all who have heard of it, why all
such do not feel in their hearts and display in their lives its
cleansing, sanctifying power, is, and can only be, their willful,
stubborn unbelief. How it is with you whom I am now addressing it is
not for me to say.
Those only who are thus marked have any right to count themselves
to the Lord's people, and to set themselves at the Savior's table.
Let us hold, not as a dry doctrine, but as a blessed truth, that
apart from Christ's blood there is no salvation. Let us fix our
hearts with deeper and more prayerful love on Him; let it be ours
with a glow of spiritual fervor, a joy with which nothing else will
compare, to confess:
My hope is built on nothing less
Than Jesus' blood and righteousness.
Amen.
PALM SUNDAY.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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