The Only Cure For Guilt

In 1893 a Parliament of Religions was held in Chicago. Dr. Hale was the speaker for the Unitarians; Swami Viv Kananda for Hinduism; and Joseph Cook for Christianity. After all the representatives had boasted of the glories of their religions, Dr. Cook spoke. He moved purposefully to the front of the podium, and announced, “I want to introduce Lady Macbeth.” 

You may remember the tragic scene to which he referred. She had incited her husband to murder their king, while he was a guest in their castle. At last her guilt caught up with her, and despite her daytime brazenness, she could find no peace during the night. She was tormented with guilt. Her doctor had been called, and while he attended her she walked and talked in her sleep. Her anguished mind kept uttering its terrible guilt: “Out dammed spot! Out I say!...Here’s the smell of the blood still: All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. Oh, oh, oh!” (Act V, scene 1) 

Then when Dr. Cook introduced Lady Macbeth to that great audience in Chicago, he turned to Dr. Hale, the Unitarian, and said, “Have you sir, anything in your religion that will wash away her sin? A silent face was his only reply. He asked the Hindu the same question, and was met with the same silence. Then, lifting up his arms towards the audience, he cried out, “The blood of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, cleanses us from all sin.”

Nothing in life can remove our guilt and shame only Jesus Christ. No religion, no priest, no minister, no sacrifice, no payment, nothing only the blood of Jesus Christ, God’s Son.

“…how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?” (Hebrews 9:13-14)

“…the blood of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, cleanses us from all sin.” (1 John 1:7)

“To Him who loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood…” (Revelation 1:5)

Charles Wesley said it well in his old hymn, “He breaks the power of cancelled sin, He sets the prisoner free; His blood can make the foulest clean; His blood availed for me.”

There is a story that one night Martin Luther went to sleep troubled about his sin. In a dream he saw a dark angel standing by a blackboard, and at the top of the board was Luther’s name. The angel, chalk in hand, was listing all Luther’s sins, and the list filled the blackboard. Luther shuddered in despair, feeling that his sins were so many they could never be forgiven. But suddenly in his dream he saw a pierced hand writing above the list these words: “The blood of Jesus Christ God’s Son cleanses us from all sin.”  As Luther gazed in amazement, the blood flowed from the wounded hand and washed the record clean.

Dale Evans Rogers, was the wife of the singing cowboy, Roy Rogers. One time she said, “All my life, I have been looking for a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow, and I found it at the foot of the cross.”  

- Pastor David Goudy