Do reflect that if your case seems to yourself to be very difficult, it is provided for by this sevenfold sprinkling of the blood. If you say, “My heart is so hard! I cannot make it feel”; or if you say, “I am so frivolous and foolish I seem to forget what once I knew”; then continue still to look to the blood of Jesus, and draw hope from it even to seven times. Do not go away from that, I charge you — where else can you go? The devil’s desire will be to keep you from thinking upon Christ; but do remember that thoughts about anything else will do you very little good. Your hope lies in thinking upon Jesus, not upon yourself. Masticate and digest such a text as this every morning — “He is able to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him.” Go to bed at night with this verse upon your tongue, “The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.” Or this, “Him that cometh unto me I will in no wise cast out.” That dear man of God, Mr. Moody Stuart, somewhere tells us that he once talked with a woman who was in great trouble about her sins. She was a well-instructed person, and knew the Bible thoroughly, so that he was in a little difficulty what to say to her, as she was so accustomed to all-saving truth. At last he urged upon her very strongly that passage. “This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners,” and he noticed that she seemed to find a quiet relief in a gentle flow of tears. He prayed with her, and when she rose from her knees she seemed much comforted. Meeting her the next day, and seeing her smiling face, and finding her full of rest in the Lord, he asked, “What was it wrought you deliverance?” “Oh,” she said, “it was that text, ‘Jesus Christ came to save sinners.’” “Did you not know that before?” said Mr. Stuart. Yes, she knew the words before, but she found that in her heart of hearts she had believed that Jesus came to save saints, and not sinners. Do not many awakened persons abide in the same error? Well, I want you, poor troubled heart, ay, and you also who are of a joyful spirit, to keep on with this sevenfold presentation of the sacrifice of Christ unto God; and even if a vail should hang between you and the Lord, I beg you to continue to sprinkle the vail with blood until before the eyes of your faith the vail rends in twain, and you stand in the presence of your reconciled God, rejoicing in Christ Jesus.

II. Our second head is this, — THE BLOOD IN ITS INFLUENCE UPON PRAYER.

“The priest shall put some of the blood upon the horns of the altar of sweet incense before the Lord.” The priest in this case goes from the inside of the holy place towards the outer court, having dealt with the vail of the Holy of Holies, he turns round and finds close at his side the altar of incense made of gold, and surmounted with a golden crown; to this he goes deliberately, and places a portion of the blood upon each of its horns. Horns signify power, and the explanation of the symbol is that there is no power in intercessory prayer apart from the blood of expiation.

Remember, first, that the intercession of Christ himself is based upon his atonement. He is daily pleading before the throne of God, and his great argument is that he offered himself without spot unto God. It seems to me most clear and blessed that our Lord Jesus makes this the main plea with the Father on our behalf — “I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do.” He has suffered in our stead, and every day he pleads these sufferings for us: his blood speaketh better things than that of Abel. He seeks no new plea, but always urges this old one — his blood shed for many for the remission of sins. “It pleased the Father to bruise him,” and now it pleases the Father to hear him. The bruised spices of his passion are an incense of sweet smell, and derive a double acceptance from the blood-smeared altar upon which they are presented.

And now take the type to yourselves. You and I are to offer incense upon this golden altar by our daily intercession for others, but our plea must always be the atoning blood of Jesus. I pray you, dear friends, to urge this much more than you have been accustomed to do in your prayers. We are to cry to God for sinners, and we are to cry to God for saints, but the sacrifice of Jesus must be our strength in petitioning. Intercession is one of the most excellent duties in which a Christian man can be engaged: it has about it the honor both of priesthood and kingship. The incense-altar ought to be continually smoking before the Lord God of Israel, not only in our public prayer-meetings, but in our private supplications. We should be continually pleading for our children, for our friends, for our neighbors, for those who are hopeful, and those who seem hopeless; but the great plea must always be, “By thine agony and bloody sweat; by thy cross and passion.” Offer sweet spices of love, and faith, and hope, and lay on the burning coals of strong desire, but on the horn of your altar smear the blood.

“Blood has a voice to pierce the skies,
    ‘Revenge’ the blood of Abel cries
But the rich blood of Jesus slain
    Speaks ‘peace’ as loud from every vein.”

Take care you never advance another plea, or if another let it be very subsidiary to this master reason. We may say, “O Lord, save men; because their immortal souls are precious; save them that they may escape from endless misery, and that they may display the power of thy grace; save them also that thy word may not return unto thee void, and that thy church may be built up by their means”, but we must never be content with these pleas; we must go on to plead the name of Jesus, for whatsoever we ask in that name we shall receive. He who once poured out his soul unto death, and now maketh intercession for the transgressors, will see to it that our pleadings shall not be rejected. In all our intercessions we must remember Calvary; the incense altar for us must on the horn of its strength be always sprinkled with the blood.

And, dearly beloved, as this must be the plea of our intercession, so it must be our impulse in making intercession. When are pray we come, as it were, to this golden altar, and we look thereon: what is that we see? Stains of blood! We look again, and again see crimson spots, while all the four horns are red with blood. Did my Lord pour out his soul unto death for men, and shall not I pour Out my soul in lining earnest when I pray? Can you now bow your knee to plead with God and not feel your heart set upon the good of men, when you see that your Lord has laid down his life that they may be saved? Cold prayers and dull pleadings would vanish if we would but remember how Jesus loved, how being in an agony he sweat as it were great drops of blood. Brethren, we are sadly blameworthy for neglect of intercessory prayer. I cannot tell how much of blessing is being withheld, because we do not pray importunately for our fellow-men. May the Lord arouse us! May he never permit us to neglect the precious use of the mercy-seat! When the late Dr. Bacchus was ill, and near to die, a surgeon visited him, and as he went out of the door, he was observed to speak to the servant. The good old divine begged the attendant to tell him what the surgeon said. After some pause he said, “Dear Sir, he told me not to leave you, for you could not live more than another half-hour.” “Then,” said the saint, “help me out of bed, let me get upon my knees and spend my last half hour on earth in praying for the church of God, and for the salvation of men.” What a blessed way of spending one’s last half-hour; let me rather say — what a blessed way of spending half-an-hour at any time! Try it this afternoon! I do not know any method of benefiting our friends which is more constantly open to us all than that of intercessory prayer; and I cannot give you a better argument why you should use it than this, that your Lord has sprinkled the golden altar of intercession with his own blood. Where he poured out his blood, will not you pour out your tears? He has given his bleeding heart for men, will not you give your pleading lips?

I think, too, I must say that this smearing of the horns of the altar with blood is meant to give us very great encouragement and assurances whenever we come to God in prayer. Never give anybody up, however bad he may be. If you know a man that is as much like the devil as two peas are like each other, still have hope for him, because when you come to the golden altar to offer your prayers on his behalf what do you see? Why, there is the blood of Christ. What sin is there which it cannot remove? “Oh,” you say, “did Jesus die for sinners like this man, and shall I despair of him, and therefore refuse to pray for him?” This is logical argument. We are slow to labor for men because we are slow of heart in expecting their salvation, and this arises out of our narrow views of our Lord Jesus. I pray you enlarge your ideas of God’s mercy and of Christ’s power to cleanse. Pray not with a phantom hope, but with solid confidence, and say, “Lord, I do but follow with my tears where thou hast been with thy blood. I am pleading for this man’s pardon, and thou art also making intercession for transgressors. I am pleading for those whom thou hast bought with thy blood, and therefore I am confident that my desire is in consonance with thy will, and that I shall be heard in heaven, thy dwelling-place.” When we pray, let us with vehement desire plead the blood of Jesus Christ. Perhaps fewer petitions, and more urging of the merit of Christ, would make better prayers. If we were shorter in what we ask for but longer in pleading the reason why we should obtain, we might prevail more easily. I suggest that we use fewer nails; but take care that those nails are driven in with Calvary’s bloodstained hammer, and clenched with this argument, “For Jesus’ sake.” May this sort of prayer be used by us all in private and in public, and then we must and shall prevail.

III. Time flies too quickly this morning, and therefore I must pass over many things I had thought to dwell upon. The last point is, THE BLOOD IN ITS INFLUENCE UPON ALL OUR SERVICE.

You see we have been coming outwards from the vail to the golden altar, and now we pass outside the holy place into the outer court, and there in the open air stands the great brazen altar, — the first object that the Israelite saw when he entered the sacred precincts. As soon as ever he entered into the first enclosure his eye lighted upon the great altar of brass upon which burnt-offerings were burned, and oblations were presented unto the Lord. It was at the foot of this brazen altar that the bowls of blood were poured out continually, so that the altar was encrimsoned with it, and the soil around was soaked with the sanguine flood.

That altar represents a great many things, and among the rest our Lord Jesus presenting himself to God as an acceptable sacrifice. Whenever you think of our Lord as being an offering of a sweet smell unto God, never dissociate that fact in your mind from his being slain for sin, for all our Lord’s service is tinged by his atoning death. It is a great mistake when you are trying to explain any one of the Levitical sacrifices to run entirely upon one line, for there is a blessed union of all of them in Christ. The offerings of a sweet savor were all of them in a sense sin-offerings: there are clear indications of this. At the same time the sin-offering was not altogether an abomination, but in part a sweet savor offering, for the fat, as we have seen in our reading, was presented upon the altar. What God hath joined together let no man put asunder. You may look at your Lord under various headings, and separately think of his life and of his death; but never stereotype even that division, for his death was the climax of his life, and his life was necessary to his death. Always think of Jesus in all your meditations upon him as presenting himself to God and pouring out his soul unto death by way of atonement. When I see that great brazen altar I do not forget how our Lord was accepted of God, but when I see the floods of blood at the foot of the altar I am reminded of the fact that “He his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree.”

Viewing the type in reference to ourselves, let us learn that whenever we come to offer any sacrifice unto the Lord we must take care that we present it by virtue of the precious blood of Christ. The worship of this morning — God knows our hearts, he knows how many have really adored him, and he knows out of those who do worship, how many of us have presented our sacrifice, thinking only of the merit of Jesus as the reason why it should be received. When you rise from your knees after your morning prayer, have you really pleaded the precious blood? Your petitions will not else be acceptable to God. When you are praying at eventide, and speaking with your heavenly Father, have you your eye upon Christ? If not, your devotion will be rejected. As it is with worship in the form of prayer, so is it with worship in the form of praise. Sweet sounds are very delightful when we sing the praises of God, but unless the altar be blood-stained upon which we lay our psalms and hymns, they will not be accepted for all their music. We also bring to God our gifts as he prospers us; I trust we are all ready to give him a portion of our substance; but do we present it upon the altar which sanctifieth the giver and the gift? Do we see the blood of Christ upon it, and present our gold and silver through that which is more precious far? If not, we might as well retain our money in our purse. When you go this afternoon to your Sunday-school classes, or go out into the streets to preach, or go round with your tracts, will you present your holy labor to God through the precious blood? There is but one altar on which he will accept your services, that altar is the person of his dear Son, and in this matter Jesus must be viewed as pouring out his blood for us. We must view the atonement as connected with every holy thing. I believe that our testimonies for God will be blessed of God in proportion as we keep the sacrifice of Christ to the forefront. Somebody asked our brother, Mr. Moody, how it was that he was so successful, and he is said to have replied, “Well, if I must tell you, it is I believe because we come out fair and square upon the doctrine of substitution.” In that remark he hit the nail on the head. That is the saving doctrine; keep that before your own mind, keep it before the minds of those whom you would benefit. Let the Lord see that you are always thinking of his dear Son. And, beloved, do you not think that this pouring of the blood at the foot of this brazen altar indicates to us how much we ought to bring there? If Jesus has brought his life there, and laid himself thereon, ought we not to bring all that we are and all that we have, and consecrate all to God? Let us not offer a lean, scraggy sacrifice, or one that is half dead, or broken, or diseased; but let us bring our best at its best, and cheerfully present it unto the Most High through the precious blood. One said of a young man who had lately joined the church, “Is he O and O?” and another answered, “What do you mean by that?” “Why,” said the first, “I mean, — Is he out and out for Christ? Does he give himself spirit, soul, and body to Jesus?” Surely, when we see the altar with Christ himself upon it, and his blood poured out there, we must acknowledge that if we could spend our whole life in zealous labor, and then die a martyr’s death, we should not have rendered even half what such amazing love deserves. Let us be stimulated and quickened by the sight of the blood upon the brazen altar!

Lastly, you notice the blood was poured out at the bottom of the altar. What could that mean but this — that the altar of thank-offering stood upon and grew out of a basis of blood. So all our deeds for God, our sacrifices for his cause, must spring out of the love which he has manifested in the death of his dear Son. We love him because — you know the “because” — because he first loved us. And how do we know that he loves us? Behold the death of Jesus as the surest proof. I long to put my whole being upon that altar, and I should feel as I did so that I was not giving my God anything, but only rendering to him what his dear Son has bought a million times over by once shedding his life-blood. When we have done all, we shall be unprofitable servants, and we shall say so. All that we have given to God has been presented out of gratitude for the fact that God so loved us that he gave his only begotten Son to die for us that we might live through him. Load the altar! Heap it high! Let hecatombs smoke thereon, for it is built upon God’s unspeakable gift. When sin is removed, service is accepted — “then shall they offer bullocks upon thine altar.” Attempt no offering of your own works till then, for unpardoned sinners bring unaccepted offerings. First, let the blood be recognized, and let the full atonement be rejoiced in. Service rendered to God with a desire for personal merit is abominable in his sight; but when our merit is all found in the divine person of his Son, then will he accept us and our offering, too in Christ Jesus. God grant unto you, dear hearers, to be accepted in the Beloved. Amen.