THE BLOOD-SHEDDING

"Without shedding of blood is no remission." Heb:9:22

Spurgeon says 'I will show you three fools, One a soldier in battle griveously wounded nie unto death, listen and judge his folly, he asked not the physician how he may be healed, but who wounded him and how this came about. (paraphrased)

Fool no Two, a Captain in a storm, the ship is flying before the gale, the masts are creaking, the sails are rent to rags.... Where is the Captain? retired to his cabin, it is mysterious, this wind, no one ever yet has been able to discover it. So he is more concerned as to where the wind came from than guiding the ship out of the storm, the man is mad sir! (paraphrase)

The third fool I shall doubtless find among yourselves. You are sick and wounded with sin, you are in the storm and hurricane of Almighty vengeance, and yet the question which you would ask of me , this morning, would be, "Sir, what is the origin of evil?" You are mad sir, spiritually mad; that is not the question you would ask if you were in a sane and healthy state of mind; your question would be: "How can I get rid of the evil?" Not, "How is it that hail descends from heaven upon Sodom?" but "How may I, like Lot, escape out of the city to a Zoar?" Not, "How is it that I am sick?" but "Are there medicines that will heal me? Is there a physician to be found that can restore my soul to health?" Ah! you trifle with subtleties while you neglect certainties. More questions have been asked concerning the origin of evil than upon anything else. Men have puzzled their heads, and twisted their brains into knots, in order to understand what men can never know-how evil came into this world, and how its entrance is consistent with divine goodness. The broad fact is this, there is evil; and your question should be, "How can I escape from the wrath to come, which is engendered of this evil?"