Episode Transcript
PRAYER OF CONSECRATION
Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.
Jesus, I belong to you.
I lift up my heart to you.
I set my mind on you.
I fix my eyes on you.
I offer my body to you as a living sacrifice.
Jesus, we belong to you.
Praying in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen.
Exodus 24:1–8
Then the Lord said to Moses, “Come up to the Lord, you and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel. You are to worship at a distance, but Moses alone is to approach the Lord; the others must not come near. And the people may not come up with him.”
When Moses went and told the people all the Lord’s words and laws, they responded with one voice, “Everything the Lord has said we will do.” Moses then wrote down everything the Lord had said.
He got up early the next morning and built an altar at the foot of the mountain and set up twelve stone pillars representing the twelve tribes of Israel. Then he sent young Israelite men, and they offered burnt offerings and sacrificed young bulls as fellowship offerings to the Lord. Moses took half of the blood and put it in bowls, and the other half he splashed against the altar. Then he took the Book of the Covenant and read it to the people. They responded, “We will do everything the Lord has said; we will obey.”
Moses then took the blood, sprinkled it on the people and said, “This is the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words.”
CONSIDER THIS
If my count is correct, today's text marks the third time the Israelites have verbally and vocally expressed their intentions of obedience, stating some version of the following:
“Everything the Lord has said we will do.”
As we are now within days of recounting the catastrophic failure known to history as "The Golden Calf," it seems apropos to remember the old adage: The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
But what about the road to heaven?
It would make sense to say something like, "The road to heaven is paved with loving obedience." If only it were true. You want the truth? It's a hard one. Brace for it:
The road to heaven is paved with blood.
Remember the Passover? "The blood will be a sign for you on the houses where you are, and when I see the blood, I will pass over you" (Ex.12:13a).
And, of course, you saw it in today's text as the "young men" sacrificed "young bulls."
Moses took half of the blood and put it in bowls, and the other half he splashed against the altar. . . . Moses then took the blood, sprinkled it on the people . . .
The salvation and deliverance wrought by a Holy God is a bloody mess. But why blood? "For the life of a creature is in the blood, and I have given it to you to make atonement for yourselves on the altar; it is the blood that makes atonement for one’s life" (Lev. 17:11).
In the spirit of primitive Christianity and primal faith, let's strip it back to the foundation:
Sin is death. Blood is life.
This offends modern and especially postmodern sensibilities. To that I will say—in the vernacular of my children's generation—Sorry. Not sorry.
Sin is death. Blood is life.
But how is sin death? Sin destroys our relationship with God. An unreconciled relationship with God is death. The Bible does not mince words: "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Rom. 6:23).
Sin is death. Blood is life. Atonement (at-one-ment) is reconciliation with God.
Therefore, only blood can atone for sin—restoring the relationship between sinful people and a holy God.
So, back to where we began today.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
And, yes, the road to heaven is paved with loving obedience—not ours, but his. "For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous" (Rom. 5:19).
And, yes, the road to heaven is paved with blood—not the blood of animals anymore—but the blood of Jesus.
"For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross." (Col. 1:19–20)
The road to heaven is paved with blood.
THE PRAYER FOR DELIVERANCE
Lord Jesus, you are my Deliverer.
I receive your deliverance from sin to righteousness, from darkness to light, from death to life, and from chaos to new creation—indeed, from hell to heaven—all of which has come by your blood. I receive your blood sacrifice for my sins, your death in my place, and your resurrection as my eternal life. I do not claim this as a distant hope but receive it as a present reality.
Awaken me to the unparalleled power of the blood of Jesus—nothing but the blood of Jesus.
It will be for your glory, for others' gain, and for my good.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost.
As it was in the beginning is now and ever shall be. World without end, amen! Amen!
