“Having an High Priest over the house of God; let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water” (Hebrews 10:21, 22).
Did you know the Bible taught sprinkling? Here it is! What is to be sprinkled? Our hearts. And with what? Blood. Our bodies are to be washed with water. at is baptism. When the body is washed with water and the heart sprinkled with Jesus’ blood, the result is freedom from an evil conscience.
What your conscience says to you depends upon who is using it. What you hear from a piano depends on who sits at the keyboard, doesn’t it? Similarly, if Satan is playing on the keyboard of your conscience, he may give you an easy time when you should be having a hard time or he may hound and worry you when you ought to feel free and joyous in Christ.
Only a heart sprinkled with the blood of Jesus Christ is truly free from guilt. And the purpose of that blood of sprinkling is not to quiet the mind in rebellion but to take away sin and to deliver the soul from slavery to Satan.
Let us draw near to Christ “in full assurance of faith”—the assurance that comes from faith. Faith is believing God. “Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness” (Romans 4:3). If we will simply believe what the Lord says as Abraham did, we can have the same assurance of righteousness by faith.
So when John declares, “Sin is the transgression of the law” (1 John 3:4), I accept his definition. When Jesus says that He has come to save His people from their sins, I respond, “Yes, dear Lord, I believe You can, and I want to be saved, not only from the death which is the end of sin, but from the sin which is the beginning of death. I desire to get rid of the root, not merely the fruit. I want to be delivered.” And Jesus says, “My child, I am here to do that very thing. Come near.”
We have already studied about the sprinkling of the blood on the horns of the brazen altar, on the golden altar, and on the mercy seat, but all that will be unavailing as far as you and I are concerned unless that same precious blood is sprinkled on us. Notice the lesson from the type. “When Moses had spoken every precept to all the people according to the law, he took the blood of calves and of goats, with water, and scarlet wool, and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book, and all the people, saying, is is the blood of the testament which God hath enjoined unto you. Moreover he sprinkled with blood both the tabernacle, and all the vessels of the ministry. And almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission” (Hebrews 9:19-22). Moses sprinkled not only the book of the covenant and the sanctuary but also the people.
You remember that in the final plague on Egypt at the time of the Exodus the angel of death passed through the land and killed the firstborn in every family. But God provided a way of escape for His people. “Through faith he [Moses] kept the Passover, and the sprinkling of blood, lest he that destroyed the firstborn should touch them” (Hebrews 11:28). On that eventful evening the father of the believing household slew a lamb and sprinkled the blood on the lintel and on the door posts. Through that night of judgment all the family stayed inside that blood-sprinkled home. The blood must be sprinkled on the door.
In Hebrews 12 the apostle referred to the terrors of Mount Sinai when God proclaimed His law amid thunders and lightning. But the Christian does not come to that mount. Instead “ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel” (Hebrews 12:22-24). Can blood speak? Yes, indeed. You remember that God said to Cain, “The voice of thy brother’s blood crieth unto me from the ground” (Genesis 4:10). Abel’s blood cried for vengeance; Jesus’ blood cries for mercy.
The sprinkled blood has a double message. First of all, it reveals to us sin’s terribleness. As we approach the cross and see the blood dropping from the wounds in Jesus’ head, hands, and feet we exclaim, “O Lord, what has happened? Why is this?” and He answers, “ This is the fruit of sin.”
Let us go back to the Garden of Eden and think of the first transgression. Eve wandered near the forbidden tree—curiosity leading her on—heard the serpent speak, put forth her hand, plucked the fruit, and ate it. Many people today would say, “What a little thing!” But sin is rebellion—choosing my way instead of God’s way. That one sin opened the floodgates of woe upon our world.
Suppose that Adam’s and Eve’s eating of the forbidden fruit had been the only sin ever committed. Would Jesus have had to sacrifice His life in order to save them? Is sin that bad? When you lose your temper and mar the peace of your home with angry words, does it cost Jesus’ death to forgive you? Do lustful imaginations harboured, selfish ambitions nurtured, covetous thoughts cultivated, make necessary the cross of Calvary? Then you agree that sin is not trivial.
More than one man has awakened from a drunken stupor and found himself in jail. As some of his besotted brain cells begin to function, he cries out, “Where am I? Why am I here? What happened?” The guard responds, “Don’t you know what happened? You murdered your wife!” “Me? Murdered my wife? No, no! I love her! I wouldn’t kill her.” “But you did. You choked her to death last night.” As the effects of the alcohol continue to wear o and full sobriety returns, how he cries out in anguish! “Me! I murdered my wife? I wish I hadn’t taken that whiskey! I wish I hadn’t taken that whiskey!”
We need to awaken from sin’s stupor, because until we have sorrowed for our sin and have sensed that it has murdered the Son of God, we are not ready for the word of peace and reconciliation. Conviction and repentance come before pardon. As the message of the sprinkled blood changes my thoughts, sin no longer seems funny. It murdered my best Friend (my Beloved Husband).
Look to Jesus on Calvary—hanging there in the blackness of despair. What is happening to Him? He is drinking the bitter cup. He is tasting death for every man. Watch while Satan lashes at Him, as he inspires the multitude to torment Him in His dying agonies. is is the nature of sin! If you stay with sin, it will do that to you. Let the blood from Jesus’ wounds fall on you. As it cleanses your evil conscience you will cry, “O God, I don’t want to follow the devil any more.”
But the sprinkled blood holds a second message. It reveals not the only the terrible character of sin but also the wonderful character of God. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son” (John 3:16)—gave Him to die that cruel death for us. And the Son gave Himself. As He hung there in agony Satan tortured Him with the temptation that if He died in the sinner’s place, He could never live again. There came a point in that tragedy when He could not see through the portals of the tomb, but He loved us so much that He was willing to be blotted out.
As His sprinkled blood drops upon your soul can you doubt that He will give you the pardon that He died to make possible? If you were in prison under $10,000 bond and a friend should raise the money so that you could get out, would you question his desire to have you released? Looking at Calvary, we cannot doubt the Saviour’s love, for the same cross that tells us how bad sin is tells us how good God is. Here we not only experience repentance, we can also find faith. Here we obtain sorrow for sin, and joy because of forgiveness.
“The sprinkled blood is speaking Before the Father’s throne, the Spirit’s pow’r is seeking To make its virtues known; The sprinkled blood is telling Jehovah’s love to man, While heav’nly harps are swelling Sweet notes to mercy’s plan. “The sprinkled blood is speaking Forgiveness full and free, Its wondrous pow’r is breaking Each bond of guilt for me. The sprinkled blood is pleading Its virtue as my own, And there my soul is reading Her title to Thy throne.” R&R WDF
