It is wonderful for us to get together for these days and share the Lord together.
At the highlight of Israel’s history, when they had their temple, the ark of the covenant in the midst of the Holy of Holies, and the Shekinah glory upon the whole city of Jerusalem, it was a precious time to come up to the feasts, to hear the word of the Lord, to see the blood of sacrifice, and to feast together.
And so we have this privilege to gather in the same way: a holy convocation, where the Lord calls us to recall all that He has done. We have asked the Lord to give us a special portion of His Spirit for these days.
There is a necessity of revelation for us to see beyond the doctrines to the reality—that we might see, by a spirit of wisdom and revelation, our Lord Jesus as the Victor over Satan and over all that stands against the purpose of God. We need that vision.
We need to see again by the Spirit that the issue with us is our spiritual life, which the enemy is prowling about, seeking to steal from us, if we in any way become lacking in vigilance, as the Lord has asked us.
So we need the Spirit of God to wake us up to the conflict and to the awareness that there is still the stealer about, who is willing to take anything out of your life that would make you less than the Lord’s purposed destiny for you.
We further need the Holy Spirit when we look at this whole matter of overcoming. There is a tendency, I think, because it is such a high and noble matter, for most people to feel, “Well, I think I am going to have to go up to heaven in the second load. I do not think I am really quite this overcomer.”
But we see in the seven churches the Spirit, in a winsome, wooing way, calling for every Christian to hear what the Spirit is saying. We pray for an inclusive spirit here this morning, that everyone would hear that Spirit-call to overcome and rise up by faith.
Indeed, it is a noble fight, and we must enter in by faith that our Lord Jesus, who has overcome, will grant us victory.
We come and ask the Lord for this special portion because, even this morning, as we speak on this wonderful matter of overcoming by the blood of the Lamb—what a tremendous topic—we realize that the enemy would try to distract.
If he can make us, even this morning, put ourselves into neutral—make us passive rather than active listeners—then he has gained a little something, temporarily at least. So let us not be passive, but let us enter in.
We know the spirit is willing and the flesh is weak. Some of you sleep well in any circumstances. Some are not sleeping so well and are hoping for a snooze this morning. But no, let us ask the Lord to quicken our mortal bodies by His Holy Spirit, and especially awaken our hearts to hear what He wants to say to us regarding His tremendous victory.
We want to read some Scriptures together here this morning and begin in Exodus 12, at the time of the Passover. We will just read some verses. We all know about this tremendous moment in Israel’s birth and history.
Then Moses called for all the elders and said to them, “Go and take for yourselves lambs according to your families, and slay the Passover lamb.
You shall take a bunch of hyssop and dip it in the blood which is in the basin, and apply some of the blood that is in the basin to the lintel and to the two doorposts; and none of you shall go outside the door of his house until morning.
For the Lord will pass through to smite the Egyptians; and when He sees the blood on the lintel and on the two doorposts, the Lord will pass over the door and will not allow the destroyer to come into your houses to smite.
And you shall observe this event as an ordinance for you and your children forever.
When you enter the land which the Lord will give you, as He has promised, you shall observe this rite.
And when your children say to you, ‘What does this rite mean to you?’ you shall say,
‘It is a Passover sacrifice to the Lord, Who passed over the houses of the sons of Israel in Egypt when He smote the Egyptians, but spared our homes.’”
And the people bowed and worshiped.
Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “Sanctify to Me every firstborn, the first offspring of every womb among the sons of Israel, both of man and of beast; it belongs to Me.”
But when Christ appeared as a High Priest of the good things to come, He entered through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this creation;
and not through the blood of goats and calves, but through His own blood, He entered the holy place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption.
For if the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling those who have been defiled, sanctify for the cleansing of the flesh,
how much more will the blood of Christ, Who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?
For this reason He is the mediator of a new covenant, so that, since death has taken place for the redemption of the transgressions that were committed under the first covenant, those who have been called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance.
For where a covenant is, there must of necessity be the death of the one who made it.
For a covenant is valid only when men are dead; it is never in force while the one who made it lives.
Therefore even the first covenant was not inaugurated without blood.
For when every commandment had been spoken by Moses to all the people according to the law, he took the blood of the calves and the goats, with water and scarlet wool and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people, saying,
“This is the blood of the covenant which God commanded you.”
And in the same way he sprinkled both the tabernacle and all the vessels of the ministry with the blood.
And according to the law, one may almost say, all things are cleansed with blood; and without shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.
And they overcame because of the blood of the Lamb, and because of the word of their testimony; and they did not love their life even unto death.
Lord, we come. We are so thankful for this holy convocation. We pray that Your glory would be upon us, that Your Spirit would work upon us, convincing us of all that our Lord Jesus has done to gain full victory.
We stand today for full victory: young, old, new Christians, veterans—all overcoming by the blood of the Lamb. We thank You, Lord, for all that You have done on Your side. We could ask for no more.
We ask now for living faith and our consciences sprinkled with blood, that we may serve the living God in these last days. Help us, Lord. Strengthen us, Lord, we pray, in Jesus’ precious name. Amen.
We come back to Revelation 12. We see throughout the book of Revelation that there is a tremendous conflict, whether it is seen down on earth in the seven churches, from whom the enemy is stealing things like first love. We see that there is a spiritual struggle.
Yet here we have this wonderful, wonderful song of victory. In Revelation 12, beginning in verse 10, the loud voice from heaven declares that the victory has come. Included in the victory is the part played by these overcomers—humans down on earth.
In this correspondence of earth and heaven, somehow they are involved in the victory that is casting out the enemy. What a great victory this is. But to see that humans have a part in it!
We know that there is a correspondence between the things that go on on earth and that which is going on in heaven. We remember from Daniel how often he prayed and waited because there was conflict just overhead in the heavenlies regarding spiritual matters of God’s purpose and destiny.
So we find in our own prayer times, as we gather as saints together, that oftentimes our prayers seem hindered and oppressed. We find that we have to do battle, and then we discover something in the heavens has been loosed or bound by the prayers of two or three gathered together in concert by the Spirit.
The Lord has these overcomers, and in the end they shine and give all glory to the Overcomer in Whom they overcame.
Now, who are these great overcomers? How do you picture them in your mind? Are they avatars? Are they titans? Transformers? Superheroes?
If Hollywood wrote this story and ever told this story—which they would never do because they are ignorant both of Scripture and the power of God—but if they tried, they would pick some guys with big shoulders and mighty muscles, with that kind of V-shaped body. They would all be wearing those kinds of bandanas.
These would be the overcomers who come down. Of course, in Hollywood, I doubt they would ever show these overcomers coming down and slashing to ribbons Hollywood itself. But anyway, that is another story.
This is Hollywood’s fantasy. This is not God’s overcomer. It gives much, much, much more glory to God and to the Lamb that He chooses little ones—those of little reputation, broken ones, abandoned ones, outcast ones.
Not the noble ones of the earth, as if some sort of superhuman group of Christians, but just anyone who will come may come to Jesus.
He takes this ragtag bunch, gathers them in caves, even as David did in the days of his fugitive years, and takes these people of no account and turns them into mighty men by the inspiration of His character.
Somehow Jesus takes these small ones, these little ones, these weak ones, these broken ones, and He turns them into mighty men in the Spirit.
There are traits of these overcomers that the brothers have been talking about in these days.
The Lord uses the circumstances surrounding a person’s life to shape them in warfare and strengthen them. Rather than take us out of the world into monasteries where we might overcome, on the contrary, He puts us right in the world.
There we face pressures, persecutions, and the vexations of people cursing every other word, saying negative things, and tearing down God’s name. In all of that, the Lord uses that environment to strengthen you in spirit to do the warfare that needs to be done.
Only God can devise such a way. But the Holy Spirit is a famously wise Engineer of circumstances, and He knows just what we need to strengthen us. That is why some of you are in a pretty hot place at work or in your particular situation.
Another thing we have noticed and heard our brothers share is that the overcomer is beginning to learn how to live by the life within. While on this earth, he is learning to live by that heavenly life.
He no longer lives, but Christ lives in him. He is learning more and more how to abide in that life which is within, rather than try to wrestle against flesh and blood with flesh and blood.
He has found a new and different way, and he is learning how to overcome. In that process, unconsciously to him, he is beginning to bear the testimony of Jesus, because people see Christ overcoming in him and in her.
A third thing we notice about these overcomers is that they want to gather together with others and find strength in two or three.
We sometimes have this idea that overcomers are pretty much standalone lone rangers, who just read their Bible and pray and fast, and every once in a while come out of the wilderness, speak a word to the rest of us, and hightail it back into the country somewhere.
But no, the true overcomer knows his weakness, but knows the strength in gathered two and three. Is it not interesting? We find overcomers in all seven churches.
Frankly, you and I might not like some of those churches. We will be surprised when we find overcomers coming out of churches and assemblies that we had written off.
But they are gathering—perhaps not as the whole church, perhaps not in a living way as a whole—but there are two or three here and there who are learning the secrets of prayer.
That is the fourth thing I would say: the overcomer has found a strange relief valve in his life.
Everybody—believer and unbeliever—in this present time of tribulation is feeling the pressure: pressure at work, pressure of finances, pressure of circumstances, pressure of corruption, pressure of politics. Everybody is feeling that.
But there is a way of relief, and the overcomer is finding this way of relief through prayer.
The overcomer is coming into a life of prayer, where burdens are placed upon him and he learns how to cast them upon the Lord. Then other burdens are placed upon him, and he learns again to cast them on the Lord.
In this process, they gain a sensitivity and are able to interpret some of these vexing circumstances about them. Oh, the Lord gives wisdom to those who are learning the life of prayer.
Notice, I did not say they decided to be prayer warriors. No, but they found this to be their relief as they prayed.
The Lord would lead all of us—those who are weak, those who are small, those who have been broken, and those whom the world basically says are useless. The Lord is making us into overcomers and giving us such a testimony that we can say, “We overcame. They overcame by the blood of the Lamb.”
I want to speak specifically on this matter of overcoming by the blood of the Lamb. I want to go into a little of the background of this, realizing that there are those here who can certainly speak on this matter much more capably than myself.
But there are others here who are perhaps younger. I do not want the blood of the Lamb to become some sort of mantra or magic word, but something understood with spiritual intelligence—just what we mean when we say we overcome by the blood of the Lamb.
This is at the very start of the three distinctive things that are mentioned because it is the very foundation of our overcoming. It is because of the finished work of the Lord Jesus, represented in this shedding of blood, that we are enabled to stand in the victory and then move from victory with the word of our testimony and laying down our lives.
The blood of the Lamb is the very foundation of our victory, so it is important to look into it. If we are to understand how we are to overcome, we need to see what the Lord Jesus overcame when He shed His blood on Calvary.
There is a long story that we see in the Bible, which I am going to try to present in a relatively brief way. It all starts when man fell short of the destiny that was given to him—a destiny of glory.
David so wonderfully mentioned in Psalm 8 what man should be like in purpose and creation. He has been created a little lower than the angels, but given glory and honor, and given dominion over all of the living creatures in the air, in the sea, and on the land.
Man was destined to be a prince who replenished and stewarded the whole of the globe. This was to be man’s destiny. How was he to do it? By being energized, both intelligently and with strength, by the tree of life.
These men were to take dominion over the earth. This has always been man’s purpose—your purpose and destiny.
But Paul’s very definition of sin is that we fall short of the glory of God. Man was deceived by that serpent of old, whom we find in the record, who somehow convinced man to rely on self-life rather than the Lord’s life.
Rather than be a prince of this earth, being directed by spiritual impulses from the God of gods, man chose to be a self-pronounced prince and do things his own way.
When man took that route and said, “I will live by my own knowledge and my own soul,” immediately man lost the battle. The serpent of old, the usurper, became what Jesus calls in three places “the ruler of this world,” and what Paul calls in one place “the prince of the power of the air.”
There is a mystery about the life of Satan and his present state. There is much we do not know, but from fragments of Scripture here and there, there is a tale that goes something like this.
In the beginning, this great angel, Lucifer, was perhaps even a cherub of covering, very near that emerald throne in the highest heaven where God sits and where those seraphim, angels, and elders surround.
He was a light-bearing angel of the highest order, who through self, pride, and rebellion was thrown out of the highest heaven and relegated to the first heaven, or the heavenlies, as Paul calls it.
This is where Satan runs and moves and roams. He roams across the heavenlies and across the earth. He saw Job and said, “I have got to do something about that.” So he goes to God and says, “God, that is not fair.”
The main power and activity of Satan is his ability, through lying and so forth, to accuse. Do you notice the main thing they say about the devil in Revelation 12? He accused the saints before our God day and night. This one has been cast down.
They could pick a lot of other things the devil has done, but especially to believers he is relentless in his condemning accusations.
There is a reason for accusations. This enemy, now subordinated down and under God’s permissions, has to look and find a reason to steal, kill, and destroy. He cannot just do it. If he did, we would all be gone.
But no, he has to treat men with respect, and it is all hands off unless he can find an uncovering, an accusation, an excuse, a reason to sift, or otherwise to harm.
He is always looking at man, looking at Job, saying to God, “Ha! Job? What a phony. He is being hedged in by You. You are cheating. That is the only reason he likes You.” See, this is the devil—always accusing.
We know in Zechariah 3 that he stands before Joshua the high priest and says, “Look at him. Shame on him. Filthy, filthy, filthy.” Until God comes along.
What an accuser—night and day, twenty-four-seven. You do not need to call him up for an accusation. He has been right there, putting something in your ear. This is his business.
But when he can find an accusation, then he has a right to put his hand on you—yet, very humiliatingly, only by God’s permission.
Man has lived that way since Adam fell: living in darkness, Satan ruling over the world, Satan using things in our lives to weary us out, to make us heartless, hopeless, and like vegetables.
But even in the garden, the Lord began to leave a testimony of life. Now it must be life through the shedding of blood.
Man had rejected the tree of life, but now could receive life only through the shedding of blood.
Even before Adam and Eve were thrown out of paradise, the Lord saw that these God-fearing people could not bear the shame of their sin and their nakedness. It was not simply the fact that they were naked that bothered them. It was not merely the fact that they were going into cold Iran outside of paradise that required them to wear clothes.
The Lord mercifully covered their shame by the shedding of blood as He gave them coats of animal skin.
Man began slowly, in the perception of his darkness, to receive beams of light from the Lord. Life would come when there was the shedding of blood.
Several years later, Abel offered his offering by blood to the Lord, and there was some kind of indication that God was pleased with the sacrifice.
It was not that the Lord had rejected Cain, but it was as if the Lord said, “That is it. You can worship Me that way, through the shedding of blood.” He was instructing men that there is a way—men who fear God and want to worship Him—but it is through the shedding of blood.
Noah learned this too. Once again the ruler of this world had brought the place to such filthiness that God said, “Let us destroy the whole thing.” But Noah the righteous one somehow found favor with God in obedience.
When he came out on the other side of the flood, God made a covenant of mercy: “I am going to let you live. I am not going to drown you again.” But it was through the shedding of blood that this covenant was signed.
The story keeps going. It is the same story. When Abraham came and God began to speak to him, as he moved from place to place in the promised land, he would stop.
He saw this revelation—this God—and he wanted to respond. What did he do? In every place he built an altar, and with the shedding of blood he offered sacrifice and worshiped God. God and Abraham began to talk together.
If you look closely, many times it is just after those sacrifices that the Lord actually spoke to Abraham.
One time God said to Abraham, “I am going to give you children like the stars of the sky and the sands of the sea.” Abraham, who had been walking with this God—not as closely as you and I can walk, by the way; there were gaps of thirteen years between conversations at times—believed.
It was counted to him for righteousness and ratified as they laid out animals in the shedding of blood. God covenanted with Abraham.
Abraham became a friend of God. He became the friend of God when God said to him, “Sacrifice your only son,” because there was a lesson, for the sake of history, to be learned.
Abraham went to sacrifice his only son, but learned the value of his son when the Lord said, “Stop. There is a ram. The Lord provides. Blood for blood. Your son is free, and you are My friend.”
To be a friend of God often seems to involve sacrifice. Abraham learned as he walked in this way.
Men down through history have learned these lessons: there is some measure of spiritual life, some intelligence and understanding of God, but only through the shedding of blood.
The Lord wanted to make this truth known to a nation, not just individuals. So we know the story of the Passover which we read.
The Lord said, “I want to give life to My chosen people, and it will come through the shedding of blood. Take that lamb, paint that blood on the top and on the sides of the door, and stay inside.”
“When I see that blood, I will pass over you.”
Israel was born as a nation in that precious blood. As the death angel passed over Egypt and they were sorrowing and crying all over the place, in those particular homes the Israelites were eating the lamb and thriving on the very thing that was painted over their heads.
What a lesson they learned that day. They were saved. They were redeemed. They were covered by the shedding of blood.
Not long afterward, the Lord brought them into the wilderness and began to speak to them further: “I want you to have life with Me. I want you to be a peculiar people. I want you to be a nation, a holy nation set apart for Me. I want you to be kings and priests. Now let us make a covenant by the shedding of blood.”
What a covenant they discovered. They found that there was a way to find forgiveness from sin: through sacrifice and the shedding of blood.
They found that they could be atoned with God, and all that guilt and sin rolled away once a year by the shedding of blood.
They discovered that they could fellowship with the Lord by going to His tabernacle, but entering through the shedding of blood. They discovered that they could feast with the Lord, be blessed by the Lord, and experience His presence through the shedding of blood.
That is why we read in Hebrews 9, where it comes to a conclusion.
And according to the law, one may almost say, all things are cleansed with blood; and without shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.
This is the conclusion of the writer of Hebrews. In the Old Testament economy and according to the law, there was life that could be had—life in relationship to God, life in blessing, freedom from guilt and sin—but it came through the shedding of blood.
Now we ask the question: Why is that so important?
I had a professor in a Christian college who stood up in front of the class one day in a religion class and said, “This whole matter of the blood of Jesus—we should just purge it out of the Bible. This whole thing of vicarious atonement by blood—it is bestial. It is savage. It is something done by primitives. We now know God forgives because He loves. We do not need these tokens anymore.”
I am glad they kicked him out of the school a few years later. But that is how many think.
Why talk about the blood anymore at all? Many young people probably wonder, “What do we need all that stuff for? I thought we had been singing, ‘God loves me, cares for me.’ What is all this stuff? Why is it only by the shedding of the blood?”
It seems like a good question. But the question is usually based upon a problem: we are so self-centered that we have no idea how important it is for God to be satisfied.
We live under the very life and government of a holy, righteous, loving God. The blood has very much to do with God being satisfied with us.
Here we see how full of self-righteousness we really are, when we think, “You know, I can go to God and talk to Him. I think He likes me.”
This is the common experience, certainly here in America anyway. “I think God basically loves me and likes me.” People are always amazed when something terrible happens: “Why did God let it happen?”
It should just be good times with God. There are a lot of Christian cheerleading sessions and rah-rah sessions that are basically, “Hey, let us have a good time with God. Are you ready for a good time with God?”
There is no thought of blood, no humiliation of who we are apart from the blood of Jesus. We may just say some slippery words and enter in, but blood is very important to God.
Blood is life. It is the value of life. Since God put that tree in the garden—the tree of life—He values life: real life, spiritual life, soul life, body life—life.
Man throws life away when he says spiritual life is not important. Now man wants to come to God and just be ushered in with his soul.
But no. There is life, and life is in the blood, and life is the issue. There must be some kind of answer to that life which is holy and unimpeachable.
This is the basis of Satan’s accusations. The fact of the matter is, before we came to Christ, we could not come to God because Satan had our number.
If we dared try to go to God, Satan would say, “He cannot go to You. He has got sin in his life.” The accuser could start to tick off those things in your life because he has been running a videotape on you and me.
“You cannot come to God because of this, and this, and this, and this.” Those accusations, based upon our lives, cannot be met by things like, “Well, I will try to do better.”
There is already impurity in our blood. There is already poison there. There is already that which is bringing us to death. There is no way through unless there is some virtuous blood—some perfect, holy, unimpeachable blood that can answer the accusations of your life.
That is why the Lamb of God came. Jesus offered His blood: perfect sacrifice, holy, unimpeachable, virtuous. He offered that blood for you.
That is the only basis of any exchange there could be. It is not without the shedding of blood that we come into the presence of God. It has always been so.
Down through the course of history, in all these moments where man had a glimmer of understanding that there is life through the shedding of blood, the Lord was pressing into the history of man the testimony that there has been a Lamb slain since the foundation of the world.
That shedding-of-blood testimony was a testimony of something that would happen when Jesus came. And so He came. Praise God, He came.
As John said, the Son of God appeared to destroy the works of the devil. The devil had his day when Jesus stepped on earth.
John looked at Him and said, “There is the Lamb of God.” Is that not amazing? Such a great prophet—what a great prophecy. Nobody could see that young man coming down toward the Jordan, but John saw it because it was what he had been praying for.
“This is the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world.”
Jesus stepped out of that water pure, sacrificed, and offered Himself. He came up out of those waters into the wilderness, was tempted by Satan, defeated Satan, bound the strong man Satan, and began to set the captives free.
What a powerful, powerful Jesus—pure.
As Jesus came to the end, and He knew that He was going to Calvary momentarily, He mentioned this ruler of the world three times. It is worth looking just to see what Jesus says regarding this ruler of the world.
We find the first one in John 12. As the hour is near, and as the Gentiles are coming to seek Jesus, Jesus begins to speak about a grain of wheat that falls in the ground and dies.
“Now My soul has become troubled; and what shall I say, ‘Father, save Me from this hour’? But for this purpose I came to this hour.
Father, glorify Your name.”
Then a voice came out of heaven: “I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again.”
The crowd of people who stood by and heard it were saying that it had thundered; others were saying, “An angel has spoken to Him.”
Jesus answered and said, “This voice has not come for My sake, but for your sakes.
Now judgment is upon this world; now the ruler of this world will be cast out.
And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to Myself.”
The ruler of this world was about to be cast out. Jesus prophetically made this statement. How that ruler shuddered.
The next thing Jesus said about the ruler of the world is in John 14:30:
“I will not speak much more with you, for the ruler of the world is coming, and he has nothing in Me.”
Let me tell you one thing about the devil: he is the inspector general. If anybody can find anything—anything uncovered, anything wrong, any bad attitude, any inward rebellion—the enemy can find it.
The enemy had been inspecting Jesus every moment of His earthly life, and Jesus says, “The ruler of this world is coming,” of course, to take authority over Me, “and he has nothing in Me.”
You talk about a frustrating ruler. He can do nothing. He cannot touch Jesus. When Jesus goes to the cross, He goes on His own. The devil cannot touch Him.
“He has nothing in Me.” No accusation. What is your accusation about Jesus, devil? “Well, He was born of godly parents.” There is no accusation.
Again, in John 16, Jesus speaks of what will happen after He leaves and the Holy Spirit comes in His place:
“And concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world has been judged.”
Now the Holy Spirit speaks to our hearts when this ruler of the world tries to come and condemn us. The Holy Spirit says:
“There is therefore now no condemnation to them in Christ Jesus.”
The ruler has been condemned. He has no further right to condemn. He has been condemned.
The Lord has really turned this thing upside down.
We know that our Lord came, offered His blood, and died on the cross. We know from all four Gospels this eternal moment on earth, which of course has a correspondence in heaven, as all things eternal do.
As Jesus died on the cross, was buried, and rose again, Hebrews tells us what really went on up in heaven. In the heaven of heavens, in the heavenly tabernacle, something transpired of eternal value.
But when Christ appeared as a High Priest of the good things to come, He entered through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this creation;
and not through the blood of goats and calves, but through His own blood, He entered the holy place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption.
This is a most amazing revelation. On the one hand, Christ was the Lamb of God, who died and offered His blood. Up in heaven, He is the High Priest in the highest of heavens and in the Holy of Holies.
Our Lord went and offered up His perfect, virtuous, unimpeachable blood once for all, for the sins of all mankind.
What a sacrifice. What an awesome moment in the highest heaven. What a tremendous corresponding impact down here on earth.
Jesus died for our sins according to the Scriptures. He rose again according to the Scriptures. He ascended at the right hand of the Father according to the Scriptures.
Those who believe in Him are cleansed by His blood, washed by His blood, saved by His blood, given life by His blood, and sanctified by His blood. There are words that fill the rest of the New Testament just to describe what happened when that precious blood was shed.
They are only human words. The reality is greater than the words. We will just look at a few words that deal specifically with His precious blood.
Jesus said that we have been ransomed by His blood:
“I have not come to be served, but to serve, and to give My life a ransom.”
Imagine that. You have been kidnapped. That is what the enemy did—he kidnapped us and sent out a ransom demand: “Who can pay for this person back?”
Jesus came with His blood and ransomed us—took us back. Praise God.
It was so encouraging to hear about this precious sister in India who somehow escaped the kidnappers’ hands. We have escaped the greater kidnapper, one who would kidnap us to hell. Yet we have been ransomed. Is that not a wonderful word?
Paul twice uses this phrase to describe what happened by His precious blood: “You have been bought.” Straight out bought with a price. What a great price.
Actually, we are no longer free in one sense. As our brothers have been sharing, it is wrong to say, “You have been bought with a price, and now you are a Christian; now you are free.”
Well, I understand that, because we are free from guilt, free from shame, free from the stain of our sins, and free because we are alive. But we have been bought with a price. Now glorify God in your body.
Remember that man was destined for glory? Then we fell. That was the shortest airplane flight in history: Adam, destined for glory—and that is you and me.
But now you have been bought with a price and destined for glory. There you go. Oh, wonderful—bought.
In Romans 3, there is a coming together of three words in this beautiful little gospel passage, with the central thought of the blood.
But now apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets,
even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe; for there is no distinction;
for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus;
Whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith.
Through His blood, these three things became our reality.
First, we have been redeemed. The Greek word speaks of a word most commonly used by slave markets, where a slave is redeemed and set free from the slave market. We have been set free from the enemy, redeemed by His precious blood.
Second, we have been covered—this propitiation. It actually says “mercy seat.” You and I have been atoned by that precious blood. We have been covered by the presence of God.
The devil can make any accusation he wants. Who can condemn? God has justified. You can see that covering of His precious blood over us in that mercy seat.
Third, we have been justified. Let me put it another way: it means made righteous.
By His blood, we have been made righteous. This is incredible. We had no righteous life until Christ died for us, but now we have been made righteous.
Let me put it positively: the devil has no right to us anymore because we have been made right by God. We have been brought back to paradise. We have been brought back to the tree of life. We are learning to live the right way.
We are learning about that life which came through His precious blood. This is salvation: redemption by His blood, justification by His blood, propitiation by His blood. What a wonderful salvation we have. The enemy has no power over these things.
That is why you cannot read the book of Revelation without, every once in a while, that heavenly chorus breaking out in a song about the precious blood.
Then one of the elders answered, saying to me, “These who are clothed in white robes, who are they, and where have they come from?”
I said to him, “My lord, you know.”
And he said to me, “These are the ones who came out of the great tribulation, and they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.
For this reason, they are before the throne of God; and they serve Him day and night in His temple; and He who sits on the throne will spread His tabernacle over them.”
Their robes have been made white by the precious blood. The question implied behind this dialogue between the angel and John is this: “Who are these people up in heaven, and what right have they got to be there?”
The angel answers that they have a right to be there in the presence of God, worshiping day and night, because their robes have been made white by the blood of the Lamb. Thus they can be worshipers and enter freely into communion with God.
Wonderful—the blood of Jesus, and what it has done.
The wonderful thing about being made white by the blood of the Lamb is that it is not talking about something that happened after you died.
That precious blood that makes our garments white is not something that happens once you go up to heaven and are given some robes. This is something that happened when Jesus died on Calvary, when you believed in Jesus, and when you were saved.
You gained robes of righteousness by grace. Praise God.
Now you say, “Okay, we have been all over the Bible and talked about the blood, but how do we overcome by the blood?”
For this reason, I bring you back to the picture of Passover to mention three things this morning. We will talk about some other practical matters next time. But there are three things this morning that are absolutely essential to overcoming by the blood of the Lamb.
The first one is this: the Passover requirement was that you take this blood from this precious Passover lamb, paint the sides of the door, paint the top of the door, and stay inside.
That takes faith. Furthermore, the warning was, “Do not go outside until morning. Stay right there.”
The first practical exhortation of how we overcome by the blood of the Lamb is this: stand in the blood of the Lamb.
By faith, it is finished. You are covered. You are not the devil’s property anymore. You are God’s. You belong to Him. You need to stand there.
That is the first thing. It takes faith. Just standing still and seeing the salvation of God takes faith. We are sure there is something we really need to do.
But the first and important thing is this: just stay under the blood. Stay under the blood.
We come to this exhortation of Paul, who in a completely different way is drawing us into the same subject. In Ephesians 6, he talks about the necessity of standing in victory. How do we do spiritual warfare?
Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might.
Put on the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil.
For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.
Therefore, take up the full armor of God, so that you will be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything, to stand.
Stand therefore.
Stand, stand, stand.
The devil comes roaring. He may have no teeth, but he still has a roar. He will come prowling, roaring, condemning, accusing, and threatening. He may even threaten to take your physical life.
He might kill the body, but he cannot take your life anymore. He cannot take your life. You will not die. When your physical body ceases, your life goes right on. It is settled in heaven. It is done by the precious blood of the Lamb.
But that lion comes roaring. When we hear a lion, we tend to step back. Do not step out from under the blood of the Lamb.
Do not begin to question: “Oh, well, maybe I am not saved.” He says, “You are not safe. Look at you, you crummy Christian.” “Oh yes, I guess I am not.” And right out of the house you go.
Stand. That is the first thing to do.
Do you know what will be said of us? “We overcame.” And all we did was stand in the truth.
We stood with our loins girded with truth. We know this: “I belong to God. The enemy can do whatever he wants, but he cannot touch me unless God lets him. I am here under the blood.”
Are you there under the blood? Stand there. Resist the enemy. You will find that he will just get hoarse and go away for a season, then come at you again from some new angle.
Stand. Stay in the house. Stay under the blood. That is the very first thing.
Praise God for that. But wait—there is something more.
I do not know if you caught those two verses in Exodus 13 that I read in passing through, but this was a result of the Passover.
After the death angel had gone overhead, after the deed had been done, after Pharaoh had told the children to get out of Egypt, and after they were delivered, then the Lord said, “Now we have some dealing to do.”
“Consecrate every firstborn. They belong to Me.”
The blood of the Passover lamb spared the firstborn. That was the judgment: the firstborn in every family and all the cattle in Egypt would die. But the firstborn in all the houses of Israel were spared.
Now God says, “I spared them. They are Mine.”
The original intention was that those of every tribe who were firstborn would be given to the Lord in priesthood, given to the Lord willingly as a thanksgiving to God for sparing them.
I remember when I was a kid, a friend and I went over to another friend’s house one day. We were all high school kids, about four or five of us, and suddenly I saw this beautiful woman. Whew!
She was the older sister of this girl. I said, “Who is that?” They gave me her name. I said, “How come we never see her?” They said, “She is the oldest girl in our Catholic family, and so she is going into the sisterhood.”
Catholics used to believe this. You took your oldest kid, and they went off to become a priest or a nun.
It stung me. I never knew anybody gave themselves to God. At that time, I was not a Christian. I knew nothing of this. But I was pretty impressed because she was a beautiful girl, and she was giving it all away.
Here we are. We are bought with a price, but we are not our own.
Here is the second way we gain the victory: by consecrating ourselves as a living sacrifice on the altar to God right now, under the blood.
Consecrated. Sanctified. You have been sanctified and separated by God. Now live in that separation by offering your life and the members of your body to God.
You know Israel’s folly. Here they were, separated by God from the world and sent out of Egypt. What did they spend half their idle hours doing while in the desert?
“Oh, Egypt. Oh, how we loved the dim sum in Egypt.”
They were lusting after the things of Egypt. They were moaning, groaning, and dissatisfied with their destiny as God’s possessed and special children, because they were thinking about what they were missing back there.
Of course, the enemy gives lying memories. “Oh, you remember the good times?”
Before I got saved, sometimes the Lord reminds me of how bad some of my good times were. The enemy lies about it: “Oh, you remember the good times back then. You want to go back to Egypt, do you not?”
What folly that was. Here they were. They could be pressing into the Lord and getting to know more of Him, and all they were doing was sitting around saying, “Oh man, I wish I had some of that good Turkish tobacco.”
It is not just enough to stand in the reality and truth that we are under the blood of the Lamb. We must consecrate ourselves—body, soul, and spirit—given to God, separated to Him.
Forget that stuff. As our brother Lance said last night, the Lord says, “Let it go. Let it go.” We are on another journey now. It has nothing to do with Egypt.
But if you do not stand in consecration, then we have to talk about the third and final thing.
In the Passover, inextricably bound with the Passover, is the feast of unleavened bread. That is to say, we need to be purged of any evil and of any flesh, because it gives the enemy a place. It gives the enemy leverage.
These things must be purged.
I would like to show you a final Scripture here, and then I know we will close. In Psalm 118, that famous psalm, that psalm used in festival, there is a testimony of David and the Lord’s grace in his life.
There are some words that, to me, fit this exhortation I want to give:
In this wonderful psalm, David is speaking. He has been made king, we believe this is David, and he has been given great responsibility.
No sooner was he made king of the kingdom under which God could rule than the enemy came to attack. We have these three pronouncements in Psalm 118:10.
All nations surrounded me;
In the name of the Lord I will surely cut them off.
He is now the king. What does he do? Even before he goes out to battle, he says, “In the name of the Lord, I will surely cut them off.”
They surrounded me, yes, they surrounded me;
In the name of the Lord I will surely cut them off.
This seems to indicate they surrounded him in waves of enemy troops.
They surrounded me like bees;
They were extinguished as a fire of thorns;
In the name of the Lord I will surely cut them off.
They were no longer assembled in order, but swarming, coming at him from the left, the right, behind, and before. What does he do? “In the name of the Lord, I will surely cut them off.”
How could he say that? Because he knew his position. He knew he was in God’s kingdom. He knew this was for God’s glory. He made those pronouncements: “In the name of the Lord, I cut it off. In the name of the Lord, I cut it off.”
Do you know what happened when he said that? Indeed, the Lord cut it off, because there is a correspondence between what you say in faith and what the Lord does in heaven.
The sound of joyful shouting and salvation is in the tents of the righteous;
The right hand of the Lord does valiantly.
The right hand of the Lord is exalted;
The right hand of the Lord does valiantly.
For every “In the name of the Lord, I cut them off,” the Lord’s hand came and cut the enemy off.
He had to say it. The Lord had to do it. It is the right hand of the Lord that cuts off the enemy, but he had to say, “In the name of the Lord, we cut them off,” and then the Lord did that.
Is that not a marvelous picture for us?
Brothers and sisters, before we end today, we need to be honest about encroachment.
Many of us know the Lord—some for a long time, some fairly new. The enemy works night and day to steal things out from under you, to encroach upon your territory. Unless you cut it off, it begins to compromise and spoil your whole life.
You will find that if the enemy can just steal something, the encroachment develops to the place where we lose heart, perhaps even lose that testimony that the Lord told us to guard by the Holy Spirit within us.
He has sanctified us. He has put us on holy ground. But we need to be careful that the enemy does not encroach things into our life.
Has he made encroachments into your life? Sometimes it is big things. Sometimes it is small.
Sometimes we allow him, because we are angry, to encroach in our marriage. Oh, that moms and dads would say, “In the name of the Lord, I cut him off,” regarding their children. We know how the enemy tries to encroach into their young lives.
Does the enemy encroach into your heart with some vain things, with some unforgiveness, with some illicit lust or idea?
We have heard so many testimonies among young people especially of the encroachment of the enemy through the internet. He can take your mind right out of sanctity in the Lord and bring it into filth that quickly, just by dabbling in some kind of Google where something looks interesting.
The enemy always starts out with little encroachments. He starts out with little things.
Your devotion time: “Oh, you have gotten too busy for that, have you?”
I do not care if you have known the Lord forty years. If you are not spending some time with the Lord, taking that stand in the day, you are losing the battle.
You need to say, “In the name of the Lord, I cut off anything—television, books, sleep, anything—that is going to rob that from my life.”
It is a little tiny thing. “Oh, I am so busy.”
There are some people who have a shrine in their cars. They have no time to get alone with the Lord, but they get in their car, start it up, listen to a tape from some preacher, and have a book out on the side.
Every time they are parked, they are flipping over the daily devotional thing. They are reading two devotions on the web. But I do not care what other people are webbing to you. I am asking: are you devoting yourself to the Lord?
Do not use those kinds of excuses. “Well, oh yes, I got my two devotions, and I read the chapters as well.” “I did not really read them. I listened to the tape of the two chapters.” “Oh, I know. I was making a phone call while those tapes were playing.”
It is a very subtle thing.
Some people allow their thought life to be encroached. Some people allow their medications to get out of hand. Some people allow that casual drink to become a dependence.
These things are serious matters. You can be a Christian fifty years, but the enemy can find some way of getting you out from under covering, gaining some basis of accusation, and bringing you to heart failure.
Oh, that Christians could have a testimony: “I am in the Lord. I love the Lord. I am sacrificed to the Lord. And I cut off, in the name of the Lord, anything that I see.”
We need victorious Christians who understand the power of the Holy Spirit. You cut it off in the name of the Lord and watch the right hand of God do it.
There are things that have gotten into our lives that we basically have given up on. “Ah, it just does not work. I have just given up. Oh, there is just no hope.”
Many could testify that, after being niggled, bothered, and haunted for years, there finally came a day where you just said, “In the name of the Lord, I cut it off,” and He cut it off like that.
You wonder, “What was I doing, wrestling with that obsession? All I needed to do was claim where I live, claim Who is my Lord, and cut it off.”
We will not come to spiritual reality in our Christian lives merely by singing that wonderful song, “The Blood of the Passover Lamb,” until we are blue in the face. If we are not living in the center of it, we do not know the spiritual reality of it.
Frankly, if we are not, the enemy is overcoming us. He has got something on us. You know how he can blackmail. He has got something.
It is incredible to say that a Christian man in adultery—Satan has got it on him. Do you think that man is going to serve the Lord? He may be deceived enough to try, but something will be exposed. It will damage the whole church.
It is an encroachment. There are so many tragedies that we see all about us. There is no need to go into it.
If we want to stand in the victory of His precious blood, we need to get honest with God. I am not going to ask you to stand up here and acknowledge your encroachments.
But I think you need to stand up before the Lord your God, Who supplied the holy blood of His Son Jesus Christ to sanctify your life. I think you had better talk to Him about that which is encroaching.
In your weakness, you will be as honest as you want. But you tell the truth, and you ask for grace to cut that off. Watch what His mighty hand can do.
Just give Him the chance to produce holiness in your life, and stop fooling with it.
Do I even need to speak of the encroachments that the enemy has brought into our assemblies? Half-hearted love; devotion that is measured; secret resentments; and all of that sort of thing that makes fellowship life a lousy experience.
Oh, that we might learn how to love one another. Because of the weakness of your own flesh, how likely it is that others are struggling as well.
Can we be covenanted together in mercy to pray for one another’s deliverance, to pray and help one another, rather than just judge one another and pick on one another because of those things that bother us?
As you can see, there is so much that the enemy can do to us, but there is such a simple solution.
We are under the blood of the Lamb. Do you know what that means?
It means the Lord values you so much.
I know we fail. We are weak. We are sinful. We are unprofitable servants.
But there is a value to God that He sees in you and me that deserves full consecration.
Our dear brother Ed Miller wrote a little chorus five years ago, maybe, and he asked me to put it to a tune. Well, I put it to a tune—pretty lousy—but the chorus is beautiful.
He just gave me these little words:
He loves me because He loves me,
And proved it on Calvary.
If value is made by the price He paid,
Then the Lord made a treasure of me.
If value is made by the price that He paid, then the Lord made a treasure of me.
Do you realize, dear saint, you are God’s treasure? You are His riches. You are His treasure. You are His hope for His Son.
He wants to buff us up and make us ready for the Lord—all glorious gems and treasures. That is the value of the blood.
Do not demean the value of the blood by saying, “Oh, it is useless. It is hopeless. The enemy has got me.” Oh no, he does not—not if you belong to the Lord Jesus.
Let us just have a moment of prayer, just to consider encroachments. They could be little tiny things, but they are stealing away our overcoming life.
Oh Father, we come to You. We thank You so much for Your precious Son, the dear Lamb of God. We see that His victory is settled in heaven, and You rest and are satisfied.
We see in the Passover that as You look over that house, all You see is written there on the house: “Mine.”
As the devil looks upon that house, all he sees is, “Do not touch.”
Oh, thank God, we live under the blood of the Lamb. We want to stand firm and stand there, and having done all, to stand.
We want to put on the Lord Jesus Christ as our provision—His precious blood, His righteousness, all that He is to us. We put it on to stand firm in this evil day and declare, “You are our Lord.”
We want to respond not by lusting for Egypt, but by pressing in with consecration, to be those separated children with whom You are pleased.
But Lord, we acknowledge encroachments. It shames us to say we can call ourselves things while all the time the enemy has got an edge, a leverage. He has got us one up.
We say, “Lord Jesus, for the sake of the testimony and for the sake of Your glory, we cut him off in the name of the Lord.”
We ask that Your right hand would do gloriously. Oh Lord, how we need to be saved. Oh, thank You for Your precious blood.
Let Your blood prevail over us, even that tremendous power of life in Your blood. Let that blood give us that life of righteousness that we so desire.
Oh, help us, Lord. We cry out to You for mercy. No more encroachments. We will have nothing to do with it.
We live in the house of the Lord, and we are under the blood. We cut those things off that we might be wholly Yours.
Lord, we pray with humility, realizing the value of Your Son. In Jesus’ name.