There is a great deal of cavilling in some men’s minds about the expression, “the blood of God.” “How,” say they, “could the Godhead bleed? How could the Godhead suffer?” But if it is not the blood of Him who was God, I might just as well rely for salvation on the blood of one of the thieves that were crucified with him. What is Christ’s human nature? That is the rock on which many gallant ships have struck. It is not a person, having a distinct existence apart from the Deity of Christ; but it is a nature: what the Holy Ghost calls a “Holy Thing” (Luke 1:35); “a body that God had prepared for him” (Heb. 10:5), taken into intimate, mysterious, and inexplicable union with the Person of the Son of God. So that, whatever that human nature did and suffered, from its intimacy and union with the Son of God, the Son of God did and suffered. Did that nature bleed? It bled as having union with Deity; it being, so to speak, the instrument that Deity made use of. To use an illustration: as my soul touches an object through my hand, or speaks its thoughts by my tongue; so Deity not being itself able to bleed, bled through the humanity. Did that nature suffer? It was not the mere suffering of a human person, as a man might suffer; but it was the suffering of a holy nature in intimate union with the Person of the Son of God. And did that nature obey? The Son of God obeyed through and with that nature. So that, to cavil at the expression, “the blood of God” is nothing less than to strike a blow at a great fundamental truth. We might object, on the same ground, to the expression, “God our righteousness,” as the Prophet speaks, “And this is the name whereby he shall be called, The Lord our righteousness,” that is, “Jehovah our righteousness” (Jer. 23:6). Who is our righteousness but the Son of God? And what was that righteousness but the obedience of his human nature, for Godhead could no more obey than suffer and bleed; and yet Jehovah is our righteousness. And if we do not object to the expression, “the righteousness of God,” why should we cavil at the expression, “the blood of God?”
Now this is the grand mystery which faith embraces, and which is dear to the heart of every God-taught soul. What a power and efficacy, as the veil is taken off the heart, does faith see in that sacrifice! What a propitiation does it see made for sin by the blood of the Son of God! Faith does not view it as the blood of man! Can the blood of man put away sin? But when we see it as the blood of the Son of God, oh, what value, efficacy, power, and glory shine forth in it! But till the veil is taken off the heart we cannot see it; nor can we, till the Spirit makes it experimentally known, learn what a divine reality there is in this blood to purge the guilty conscience.
“Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God.” Ephesians 2:19
If grace has touched your heart; if the love of God has come into your soul, it has placed you among the saints of the Most High, and given you every privilege which God ever did or could give to them. And what are their privileges? To be washed in the atoning blood of the suffering Son of God, to be clothed in the justifying righteousness of his perfect and meritorious obedience, to be consecrated by the indwelling of the Holy Ghost, the Comforter, to have the love of God as their enduring portion, peace in believing, supplies of grace as needed, support and strength as they pass through this vale of tears, comforts abounding in proportion to the abundance of afflictions, everlasting arms beneath in death, a mansion of eternal bliss for the soul when the body drops into the grave, and a glorious resurrection of the body at the appearance of Christ in glory. All that the love of God can give; all that the blood of Christ has been a channel for communicating; and all that the Spirit of God can reveal to any heart, or has ever brought with power into the soul of any saint,—all these things become ours when we become fellow-citizens with the saints of God; not indeed always or often by vital enjoyment, though we get sips and tastes, drops and crumbs; but as Abraham was given possession of Canaan when he had not so much as to set his foot on, yet was it his as much by promise as it became his children’s by strength of hand. Does not the Apostle declare this, in the broadest and clearest language, where he says, “All things are yours; whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours?” and why all yours? “for ye are Christ’s; and Christ is God’s.”
“Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child; but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him.” Proverbs 22:15
We profess to believe in an Almighty, All-present, All-seeing God; and we should be highly offended if a person said to us, “You do not believe that God sees everything, that he is everywhere present, that he is an Almighty Jehovah:” we should almost think that he was taking us for an atheist. And yet practical atheists we daily prove ourselves to be. For instance, we profess to believe that God sees everything, and yet we are plotting and planning as though he saw nothing; we profess to know that God can do everything, and yet we are always cutting out schemes, and carving out contrivances, as though he were like the gods of the heathen, looking on and taking no notice; we profess to believe that God is everywhere present to relieve every difficulty and bring his people out of every trial, and yet when we get into the difficulty and into the trial, we speak, think, and act as though there were no such omnipresent God, who knows the circumstances of the case, and can stretch forth his hand to bring us out of it. Thus the Lord is obliged, (to speak with all reverence,) to thrust us into trials and afflictions, because we are such blind fools, that we cannot learn what a God we have to deal with, until we come experimentally into those spots of difficulty and trial, out of which none but such a God can deliver us. This, then, is one reason why the Lord often plunges his people so deeply into a sense of sin; it is to shew them what a wonderful salvation from the guilt, filth, and power of sin there is in the Person, blood, and righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. For the same reason, too, they walk in such scenes of temptation; it is in order to shew them what a wonder-working God he is in bringing them out. This, too, is the reason why many of them are so harassed and plagued; it is that they may not live and act as though there were no God to go to, no Almighty Friend to consult, no kind Jesus to rest their weary heads upon; it is in order to teach them experimentally and inwardly those lessons of grace and truth which they never would know till the Lord, as it were, thus compels them to learn, and actually forces them to believe what they profess to believe. Such pains is he obliged to take with us; such poor scholars, such dull creatures we are. In order, then, to teach us what a God he is, what a merciful and compassionate High Priest; in order to open up the heights, and depths, and lengths, and breadths of his love, he is compelled to treat, at times, his people very roughly, and handle them very sharply; he is obliged to make very great use of his rod, because he sees that “foolishness is so bound up in the hearts” of his children that nothing but the repeated “rod of correction will ever drive it far from them.”
“The 33:12 Report” Episode 7
Pastor Peter Simpson will be discussing:
William Tyndale and the Preciousness of the Word of God
“The 33:12 Report” Episode 6
Pastor Peter Simpson will be discussing:
What The Ministry of John Wycliffe Teaches Us Today
“The 33:12 Report” Episode 5
Pastor Peter Simpson will be discussing:
Is Open Air Preaching Essential In 21st Century Britain?
“The 33:12 Report” Episode 4
Pastor Peter Simpson will be discussing:
Why noah’s ark is gospel truth
“The 33:12 Report” Episode 3
Pastor Peter Simpson will be discussing:
Climate Change: The Biblical Response
“The 33:12 Report” Episode 2
Pastor Peter Simpson will be discussing:
Did You Know that Gospel Preaching Saved Britain from a Potential Violent Revolution
in the 18th Century?
Today’s show will focus on this amazing time in Britain’s history that is rarely known.
Topics covered will be:
1) The state of the country in the early 18th century
2) Anointed, vigorous preaching
3) The social consequences of gospel preaching
“The 33:12 Report” Episode 1 (the title being based on Psalm 33:12)
Pastor Peter Simpson will be discussing:
1) Does God deal differently with different nations?
2) Does God respond to the prayers of specific nations?
3) How is prayer related to economics, agriculture and national stability?
Nationhood, Multiculturalism and Climate Change
Jeremiah 5:17-25
The conference sermon delivered at the 2019 Britain’s Only Hope – the Gospel Conference at Penn Free Methodist Church. Pastor Peter Simpson expounds Jeremiah 5:17-25 and deals with the current key issues – from a Biblical perspective – of nationhood, multiculturalism and climate change.
The address given by Pastor Peter Simpson
at the 2019 Christian Watch Annual meeting
held at the Strangers’ Rest Evangelical Church
in London’s East End.
The CRE (Christian Resources Exhibition) took place at Sandown Park in Esher, Surrey between 15th and 17th October, 2019 and the Lord mightily blessed and answered prayer as those manning the stall had to stand for 8 hours or more each day in order to deal with a steady stream of enquirers.
Many people visited the stall and appreciated the vast array of literature on display, including Gospel tracts and pamphlets written by Bishop J.C. Ryle (the first Protestant Bishop of Liverpool) and many of the old Divines. The stall was adorned with banners portraying Huss (on the left), Luther (in the centre) and Tyndale (on the right), which created much comment. 300 British Church Newspapers were distributed, together with 300 calendars (with Gospel texts) and 300 Christian Watch newsletters, incorporating application forms to join with us. The leaflet — ‘D-day and the Providence of God’ — written by Christian Watch Committee Member, Rev. Peter Simpson, attracted considerable interest.
There was — as there always will be — many who call themselves Christian, who clearly have little understanding of the things of God but, nevertheless, the banner of the Lord was lifted up to His honour and glory and we give Him all the praise.
Prior to the Second Vatican Council held in Rome in 1962, all protestants were considered heretics by the Roman Catholic Church. After the council the Vatican proclaimed that protestants were now “separated brethren” and a movement began to assimilate protestants back into the Catholic Church. The Ecumenical movement leading to a one world church.
There’s a painful truth that glares out to us from this beautiful text and that is this – sin must be cleansed. But not just any old sin, it is our personal sin that needs to be cleansed. The blood cleanses “us” from all sin! Since our sin needs to be cleansed, it must, therefore, be filthy and polluted, but more than that, without this cleansing we are left filthy and polluted. It’s a painful picture, isn’t it?
There is a tendency today to forget just how horribly wretched sin is. We’ve dulled our spiritual senses so much that we cease to see sin as being what the Bible says it is, “exceeding sinful” (Rom 7:13). What a choice of words! “Exceeding sinful.” God, wanting to call sin by the worst of words could have called it vile or wretched or any number of names, yet He chose to call it by its own name “sin”. Literally, sin is heinous beyond all measure. When a person begins to see how ruinous and awful sin is and at the same time to see just how holy God is, it is then that they begin to wonder whether or not they, as polluted sinners, could ever meet the all-holy God in peace. It is only when we see these two things – our utter pollution by sin and the absolute holiness of God – that the Gospel begins to make any sense. Indeed, unless we see these things we will have a very low notion of the Lord Jesus and His saving work. Furthermore, our life will not be filled with Gospel wonder and astonishment concerning Him.
Thou hast given a banner to them that fear thee, that it may be displayed because of the truth. Selah.
Psalm 60:4
Banners, standards and ensigns, are given to armies by their commanders as a central point around which the troops may rally and be encouraged.
A banner is furled when there is no battle, or when the army is beaten, or has capitulated in abject surrender; so too when the banner is captured; defeat is usually not far away.
Whatever the state of the battle, the army always endeavours to keep its banner aloft and unfurled unto the very end. If the standard bearer is killed, then another takes his place, for it is a sign that the battle is still being fought and that they are a force to be reckoned with.
Moreover the banner unfurled signifies in whose name and for which cause the battle is raging. Worldly battles may be fought under despotic and wicked rulers; while opposing armies under their own banners fight against these tyrants.
