Well, the time certainly goes quickly by, doesn’t it? But it has been a precious time together. I would like for us to read a few portions of Scripture, beginning in Psalm 124, one of the Songs of Ascents.
Had it not been the Lord who was on our side,
Let Israel now say,
Had it not been the Lord who was on our side
When men rose up against us,
Then they would have swallowed us alive,
When their anger was kindled against us;
Then the waters would have engulfed us,
The stream would have swept over our soul;
Then the raging waters would have swept over our soul.Had it not been the Lord who was on our side.
Then we would also like to look in 1 Peter 1:1-2.
Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who reside as aliens, scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, who are chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, by the sanctifying work of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling with the blood of Jesus Christ: May grace and peace be yours in the fullest measure.
And then, finally, in Revelation 12:11:
And they overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb, because of the word of their testimony, and they did not love their life, even when faced with death.
Lord, we come to You tonight. We are so thankful for what You have already spoken to us. We thank You for speaking to us even through the songs of the little children. Oh, may You make real in our hearts those verses that they sang.
And now we come to You, Lord, and look to You for help. By Your Holy Spirit, bring us in, now in this moment, and continuing even as we leave this place, into the thrilling revelation of Jesus Christ, the overcoming Lamb of God. Oh, help us to live with that vision ever before us. We pray in His precious name. Amen.
It is really marvelous to think about the fact that John, an elder brother, was on the Isle of Patmos. In fact, he knew how to live in victory under the precious blood of the Lamb. He knew the testimony of Jesus, and that is why he was in exile: because of his testimony.
He had already, on several occasions, laid down his life, and even then, in Patmos, he was willing to give his life. But there, exiled and waiting before the Lord, he was caught up in the Spirit. He saw this marvelous vision—with visions upon visions—but all of His wonderful Lord Jesus Christ.
It is an amazing thing that this man, who had known the Lord so long, saw things he had never seen before: the glory of the Lord, the overcoming Lamb, absolutely victorious. As the scenes unfolded, always before him was the overcoming Lamb of God, who had taken the scroll.
All things on earth and in heaven were being unfolded and shaken, moving toward the final destiny: that New Jerusalem which he saw at the end of his vision. He was so encouraged, and the Lord told him to write these things down for those who would come after him—bondservants who really loved the Lord.
So may it be that you and I, who really love the Lord, may be caught in that same Spirit and see Jesus, the overcoming Lamb of God.
We know there is a correspondence between this great conflict that the other brothers and I have been talking about all week and the conflict that is taking place now. There is a great conflict for your spiritual life. There is a great conflict for the testimony of Jesus. It is a tremendous conflict.
Maybe, by the Spirit of the Lord, we can see and realize the greatness of this conflict. There are many Christians today who are not overcoming.
We know the enemy is full of schemes, full of temptations, full of accusations, prowling day and night. As it says in the book of Daniel concerning the last days, he is wearing out the saints.
Many saints have jobs or schools they go to where they are wearied by the worldliness, the shallowness, and the sinfulness of what goes on around them. There are many saints who have found it easier to quit, to compromise with the world, and to silence their testimony that they belong to the Lord Jesus, who is ruler of the whole world.
We understand these things. As our brother shared last night, we are all tempted by the pressures upon us to give in somehow, just to preserve our lives.
Many believers—indeed born again and washed by the precious blood of the Lamb—are presently in what we could only describe as self-survival mode. They are no longer fighting the good fight of faith. They are surviving.
Somehow they get by at work, get home, eat, watch television, and shuffle off the next day to work. They are just surviving.
But then there are those, weak and tempted like the rest, who have realized: “Had it not been the Lord who was on our side.” When the enemy comes and tempts us, presses us, and would make us weary, had it not been the Lord who was on our side, we would have been engulfed like all the rest.
We have nothing to boast in. We all know those temptations. We all know how much we need a great outpouring of reviving and mercy upon the people of God in this day.
But praise God, there are some who have determined to overcome through Christ Jesus. They are taking their place under the blood of the Lamb. They are discovering that life within which enables them to live faithfully and bear a testimony of the Lord.
They are discovering that wonderful power of resurrection life which is known when one lays down one’s life as a living sacrifice, as God’s servant during this lifetime.
And they overcame by the blood of the Lamb,
And by the word of their testimony;
And they loved not their life, even unto death.
I would like for us to look at this matter of the blood of the Lamb one more time. Last time, we considered the basic, foundational position of our overcoming: standing under the blood of the Lamb. That is our position. That is how we overcome.
Tonight, I would like to consider how we walk now that we stand in this position. The blood of the Lamb not only has the power to cover us, protect us, and keep us within God’s hand; the blood also has the power to sanctify as we walk day by day and thus overcome.
Look back at 1 Peter 1:2. In a simple way, this is the theme I would like to leave with you concerning the practical appropriation of the blood of Jesus Christ in our lives, even in this wonderful process of sanctification:
According to the foreknowledge of God the Father, by the sanctifying work of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling with the blood of Jesus Christ.
Obedience and sprinkling. Obedience and sprinkling. This is the walk of the overcomer. I hope you hear the tempo in that.
There is the necessity of obedience—faith obeying the Lord. This is a very important matter, and it is done by the grace of God. He calls us, He tells us, and we rise and obey. Yet, with every step, there is the sprinkling of the blood. This is called the sanctifying work of the Spirit.
I want to speak simply of three aspects of this sanctifying work of the blood of the Lamb:
The Lord would sanctify us and keep us by His precious blood.
Let us turn to 1 John 1. The first aspect is overcoming by sanctification through continuous cleansing. These are simple things. The children sang about them tonight, but I think it is important for us to nail these things down if we are to overcome by the precious blood of the Lamb.
Beginning in 1 John 1:5:
This is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you: that God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all.
If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.
But if we walk in the light as He Himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.
If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His word is not in us.
My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world.
Here we see the precious blood of the Lamb and its sanctifying work through continuous cleansing. The Lord’s blood is precious to God, and it is called precious in the Word. But we cannot appreciate the preciousness of His blood until we realize the truth of our great need for that cleansing.
Verse 10 says, “If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us.” God’s Word has a high standard of holiness and righteousness. But our fallen nature loves to take God’s standards of righteousness and lower them to our standards so that we can say we are okay.
One of the most precious words to us as Christians is the word grace. We are saved by grace. Grace is our theme, and forevermore will be our song. Grace is a wonderful word. We should use it more than we do, because we live by the grace of God.
But today, in Christian circles, the word grace has been pumped with some kind of steroids, like a store chicken, and brought to a definition that basically takes sin lightly. I have heard Christians, who are born again, casually talk about going out and getting drunk or looking at pornographic sites. Sin is sin.
The Bible says, “Where sin abounds, grace much more abounds,” but it does not say, “Where grace abounds, sin much more abounds.” When sin is taken casually, the precious blood of Jesus is no longer precious to us. Who needs it? “We are saved by grace.” What is sin? “Ah, little mistakes I am making. God knows. He understands.” But His standards remain.
There are others who get around this reality by speaking of sanctification as though it were an experience in which we attain sinless perfection and do not need to worry about sinning anymore. “Thank God, I got sanctified. Now I do not sin anymore.” Boy, I wish that were true.
But John says clearly, “If any man says he has not sinned, he is a liar.” This experience is not a truthful experience. Sanctification by the Spirit does not mean sinless perfection. It means continuous cleansing.
It is not that we have become perfected sinners. It is that we know, moment by moment, cleansing by His precious blood.
If we are students of the Word of God and take the Word seriously to any extent, we realize how prone we are to wander and how evident our sin is. Frankly, in our fallen nature, there cannot be a day that goes by which does not know sin in our lives.
Consider Matthew 5:1-48 through Matthew 7:1-29, which speaks of that inner heart-righteousness: not lusting in the heart; not remaining angry or unforgiving; not doing religious things to show off; not judging another. That inner righteousness of the kingdom should convict us when we read the Word.
Our brother shared from Matthew 12:36 this morning: that we shall give account of every careless word. Or consider John 13:34: “This is My commandment, that you love one another.” That would be fine, but then He says, “As I have loved you.” We realize how short we have been with husbands, wives, and those around us, and how far we have fallen short of the love Jesus has manifested toward us.
Or look at 2 Corinthians 10:5 and realize that even in our own minds we have strongholds the Lord is trying to tear down, until every thought is taken captive to Christ. This is the Word of God. Do we allow this Word to be living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, getting in and dividing those things in our lives? These are serious Scriptures.
Romans 14:23 says, “Whatsoever is not of faith is sin.” Think of how many things we do merely out of duty, just to get them done, with no faith involved at all. Or James 4:17 speaks of sins of omission: “To him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin.”
I wonder, when we stand before the judgment seat of Christ, whether we will be measured more by the sins we commit or by the sins we have omitted—the things we have simply not done that the Lord told us to do. This is the Word of God that stands before us, speaking to the Christian.
In 1 John 5:17, we read that all unrighteousness is sin. In the Greek, the thought is that anything done without the thoroughness and perfection of God is sin. Why bring up these things? Do we take the Word seriously, or do we say, “Ah, well, He does not really mean what He says”?
It is those disciples who take the Word of God seriously who begin to realize how precious the grace of God is, providing for us continual cleansing from sin.
If we were uncovered so that all these sins and things were exposed, we could not bear it. But the Lord keeps us in a continual place of cleansing by His precious blood. This humbles us, but as we live there, we realize how precious it is.
In 1 John 1:5, John says that God wants fellowship with us, yet God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. This virtually makes it impossible for Him to fellowship with us except by the continual cleansing of the blood of Jesus Christ. God wants fellowship with us, but He is light. How can He fellowship with us?
Here is the marvelous answer in 1 John 1:7:
But if we walk in the light as He Himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.
Think of this: we begin to walk in the light—obedience, sprinkling; obedience, sprinkling. We walk with Him as He is in the light. We are walking with God in the light of His Word.
We know that song: “What a glory He sheds on our way, when we walk with the Lord in the light of His Word.” But sometimes, when we walk with the Lord in the light of who He is, we become very aware of our sin. Sin is exposed. How could it not be?
If we together walk in the light, there is fellowship with the Father, with the Son, and with brothers and sisters. But there is a cost to walking in the light: surely sin will be exposed.
What do we do when something is exposed? Do we run out of the light? No, no, no. We confess our sin. We ask forgiveness. He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, cleanse us from all sin and all unrighteousness, and keep us walking in the light.
How can we keep walking in the light? Because His blood continues to cleanse us. The Greek at the end of verse 7 means that He keeps on cleansing us. This is not a one-time matter when we came to Him and were saved. This is walking with Him in the light.
A sin comes to light. What do we do? We confess it and ask the Lord to forgive us. He cleanses it, it comes under the blood, and He keeps on cleansing us—from all sin.
If we are walking in the light and having fellowship, and one sin comes to light, it is only the tip of the iceberg. There are many other things in our lives of which we are not yet aware, things the Holy Spirit will make us aware of in time.
But when one sin comes into the light, the Lord wants that one sin dealt with. If we deal with it, confess it, turn from it, and ask the Lord’s forgiveness, He cleanses us from that sin. We continue walking in the light while His precious blood cleanses us from all other sins.
I am not giving you permission to go ahead and sin all you want and deal with one sin at a time. I am simply saying that this is how we walk in the light. It is an honest walk: obedience and sprinkling, obedience and sprinkling.
Oh, the grace of God! It is the only way we could walk with the Lord. Think of the Lord Jesus walking with those twelve nudniks, His disciples—saying things, making mistakes, fleshly, carnal, outward, selfish. But the mercy of Jesus loved them and dealt with one thing at a time.
It is a little picture of how we walk in this precious grace of continuous cleansing. It is not that we have no sins; it is that our sins are covered.
Do not say you do not sin. Do not say you have fellowship if you are not walking in the kind of light where sin is exposed. If a Christian goes to bed for a week and has not asked the Lord to forgive him for sins, surely there is some problem with the light he is in.
The wonderful thing about living under the blood of the Lamb is this: there is therefore now no condemnation. When a Scripture strikes your heart with conviction, it does not condemn you. You ask forgiveness, the Lord cleanses you from the sin, and He begins to teach you how to walk in righteousness according to that Word.
There is no condemnation if we walk in obedience and sprinkling, obedience and sprinkling.
John says wonderfully at the beginning of 1 John 2, “My little children.” Do not be upset about your sins, about how much you still have to learn, or how much righteousness still has to be wrought in your life. Here is what I want you to know: you do not need to sin. But when you do, you have an Advocate.
You can come to Jesus, your Advocate, who will never, ever condemn you. If you are walking in the light, a sin comes to light, and you come to Him for cleansing and forgiveness, you will never find condemnation from Jesus, your Advocate. He is the covering, the propitiation, the atonement for your sin.
That is our Lord Jesus. That is how we overcome day by day. We are not perfect. This is not sinless perfection. Grace has not made us perfected sinners. Praise God, by His precious blood, we are sanctified in continual cleansing.
Oh, precious is the flow
That makes me white as snow;
No other fountain know,
Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
Is this our only plea? Can we walk in the light? Can we walk and have fellowship with the Lord in the light? Can we walk and have fellowship with one another in the light? Amen.
There is no condemnation. Do not stay in the shadows. Get into the light and fellowship. There is such life—zoe life—and fellowship, coming from God and from the Lord to us, and from one another. It is wonderful life, but there is a price to pay: honesty in the light of God and confession of sin.
The continuous cleansing of the blood of the Lamb is sanctifying us at every step: obedience and sprinkling, obedience and sprinkling.
We see the sanctifying work in a related way when we come to the matter of a clear conscience. Why am I sharing these things about walking, confessing sins, and being cleansed? Because we can sing, “I am under the blood of the Lamb,” all night long, but if we are not walking in such a way that His cleansing is a practical reality in our lives, we are just singing words. Where is the reality?
The reality is that we are under the blood of the Lamb, and we confess and ask forgiveness for those things that come to light. Here is a second important matter: if we would walk and overcome by the blood of the Lamb, our conscience must be clear.
Again, it does no good to profess all kinds of things if our conscience is tainted or guilty. We must learn how the Lord, by His precious blood, deals with these things.
In 1 John 3:19-22, we see the problem for the Christian:
We will know by this that we are of the truth and will assure our heart before Him in whatever our heart condemns us; for God is greater than our heart and knows all things.
Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God; and whatever we ask we receive from Him, because we keep His commandments and do the things that are pleasing in His sight.
What precious verses these are. They speak of a very real problem for Christians: our heart condemns us.
Our previously deceitful heart has now found the Lord Jesus, and the heart—especially in little children and younger Christians—can become oversensitive to sin. As Paul calls it, it becomes weak in conscience. It is easily condemned.
Out of the heart are the issues of life. That is where you believe, decide, and act for the Lord. But if our hearts condemn us, it is like a balloon being deflated. There is no walk with the Lord and no service for Him.
Sometimes we think we have sinned when we have not even sinned. Perhaps you heard that list of Scriptures I mentioned and your heart came under condemnation: “Oh, that is me. Oh boy, I am in trouble now.”
Maybe, like the Hebrew Christians addressed in Hebrews, we shrink back from living faith. We feel condemned and overwhelmed. Strangely, our heart can become a tool the enemy uses because we agree with the enemy’s condemnation.
What a terrible state to be in. But God is greater than our hearts, and He knows all things. More than the causes, reasons, and weaknesses, He knows those who really have a heart for Him, even though they are struggling and wrestling with sin. The Lord knows the heart.
He has also made provision for the heart: the sprinkling of His precious blood. In Hebrews 9:14, we read:
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?
That is what we want to do from the heart: serve the living God. But a person whose conscience feels guilty may try to appease God by good works. The precious blood cleanses us from those dead works, from feeling that we must do penance or somehow make up for our failures. Now we can serve the living God with cleansed consciences.
Hebrews 10:22 speaks of the new and living way opened by the precious blood of Jesus:
Let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.
There again, the precious blood of Jesus cleanses us even from what was an evil conscience in our heart.
What is the conscience? It is a word almost not used among Christians today. It is out of vogue. Yet Paul uses the word conscience twenty times, most often in reference to his own conscience: “I serve with a clear conscience. My conscience bears witness.”
For Paul, conscience was very important. A clean conscience is very important if we are to serve the living God without any shadow, doubt, or sense of disapproval. The conscience has to be clean.
What is the conscience, and how does it relate to the heart? Sometimes Scripture says heart and sometimes it says conscience. Let me try to make a practical distinction.
The heart is the center of your activity, where the spirit and soul meet. You believe in your heart and confess with your mouth. It is the deepest part of your understanding, your will, and your emotions. When you believe with your heart, it affects your will, emotions, and mind.
I do not want to go into all of this because, frankly, it is a mystery. But I think we can note that the conscience is, as it were, between the spirit and the heart.
The heart has been trained by a long period of sin, condemnation, and guilt. From the day we are born, our parents instruct our hearts: “This is right, and this is wrong.” If you lived on a Tahitian island where it was considered right to kill your father with a coconut when he turned thirty-five, then your parents would train your heart accordingly.
The law is a tutor of the heart. The customs of your country and culture train your heart. And, of course, the worst condemner of all is your own self-expectation—your self-righteous expectation. You train your heart for years with a standard you think you can live up to, but you always fall short, and therefore you are always condemned.
No one said with more fervor than Paul, “There is therefore now no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus.” Paul could say that because his heart had been condemned by the law, by his own self-righteousness, by his culture, by parental expectations, and by himself.
Then Jesus cleansed his conscience and heart, and Paul could live by the Spirit of life rather than under the condemnation of the law. What a deliverance that was for Paul. What a deliverance we need from our hearts.
The problem with our heart is that it has a long memory. It remembers, and the devil can appeal to it when we are in trouble: “Ah, you see? That is just part of who you are. There you go again, headed for disaster.”
If we are not careful, our hearts will give in and agree with him. The accuser accuses until our heart agrees. As we see light from the Word of God, our hearts condemn us: “Oh, that is a sin. I can never get victory over that.” Our hearts continue to condemn.
The conscience, I would put it this way, is the doorkeeper to the heart. It stands at the door to the heart. You cannot fool the conscience. You can deceive your heart into thinking that the sin you are doing is not sin, but you cannot fool the conscience. It is a simple guard.
Romans 2:14-15 gives us a definition:
For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do instinctively the things of the law, these, not having the law, are a law to themselves, in that they show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness, and their thoughts alternately accusing or defending them.
There is the conscience sitting on the heart, an arbiter, as it were, judging and either accusing or defending. Bearing witness is what the conscience does. If something comes into your life and it is sin, it bears witness: “Sin, sin, sin.”
You may say, “No, it is not sin,” but it still says, “Sin, sin, sin.” It is a very simple doorkeeper. It does not have a long memory. It just knows something is wrong.
Until the conscience is answered, our hearts cannot function as they are supposed to function. The conscience is guarding our heart, as it were. What is it looking for? An excuse? No.
You say, “I have sinned.” Then you offer a reason why. The conscience says, “Sin, sin.” It is pretty simple. It says, “Go on in,” or “Stop.” It is not looking for an excuse. It is not looking for a promise that you will do better from now on.
The conscience is looking for one thing only: the precious blood of Jesus. That is all the conscience wants to know. “Where is the blood? Something has happened. Where is the blood? Something has gone wrong. Where is the blood?”
Until you confess that sin, the conscience says, “Ah, you are agreeing with me. I said sin; now you are saying sin. Okay, what are you going to do about it?” “Oh, I am going to start living better.” Wrong answer. It still says, “Sin.”
But when you say, “I confess my sin, and I ask the Lord Jesus, as I turn from my sin, to forgive me,” conscience says, “Clear, clear. Go on in.”
Conscience has no long memory. It does not say, “Okay, now say twelve Hail Marys, pay a lot of money to something, do this and that, and perform some dead works.” No, no. Conscience is just a doorkeeper. It is just a dumb sergeant keeping watch over your heart.
It bears witness: “You are right,” or, “You are wrong.” When we agree, it says, “Please apply what I need.” It is not your blood or your righteousness, but the precious blood of Jesus that cleanses the conscience. Then it says, “Now serve the living God.”
Is this not a beautiful picture in 1 John 3:21?
Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God.
If the gatekeeper is clear, and your heart is allowed to function with a clear conscience, then we have confidence. How many of you need confidence in the Lord Jesus—confidence in your position and in your favor with Him?
We have confidence before Him. Whatever we ask, we receive, because we have living faith operating without a cloud. What we ask, we receive because we keep His commandments. Obedience and sprinkling, obedience and sprinkling.
It is not saying that you are perfect. But you are keeping His commandments and doing the things pleasing in His sight. Is there any greater reward than the smile of His face?
We do not see that smile with a conscience that is bothered, seared, or defiled. But when the conscience is cleansed by the precious blood of the Lamb, then we are His children. Abba. We need this.
Here is the story: we have confidence. “This is Daddy. He knows me. He loves me. I love Him.”
It is a wonderful thing when you are a child and your father is really happy with you. I had a few rare occasions when that was the case. There is just nothing better. Occasionally you do something and your dad says, “I am proud of you, son,” or, “You did a good job,” or, “Thank you very much for helping your mom.” You know what makes your day as a child.
Here we have a precious provision from the Lord Himself. Do you want to walk with My Father? Do you want to be pleasing to Him? Apply the precious blood of Jesus.
So we come back to 1 John 1:9:
If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
Praise God: a clear conscience. Paul was so adamant about it. In Acts 24:16, before Felix, he said:
In view of this, I also do my best to maintain always a blameless conscience both before God and before men.
I like the King James wording: “I exercise myself.” I exercise myself that my conscience may not be an offense to God or to man.
At first, especially as a young person, you may be afraid of your conscience. “Do I really want to know what my conscience thinks? Is there some way I can avoid my conscience?” Not for too long. It keeps saying, “Sin, sin.”
But after a while, as you walk with the Lord, you become like Paul. You go to your conscience and say, “What is wrong? Am I doing something wrong? I do not want to be an offense. I do not want to be a stumbling block. Is there something wrong?”
That is wonderful progress. You go to your conscience, and it does not condemn. It simply says, “You are right: sin.” You ask forgiveness, your Advocate comes along, covers that sin, and leads you in the way of righteousness. Praise God.
The third wonderful provision by the precious blood is that this overcoming life involves abiding and constant communion. How are we going to overcome the wiles of such an enemy except by staying close to the Lord?
I love this phrase in Ephesians 2:13:
But now in Christ Jesus you who formerly were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.
To me, that is a very precious Scripture to meditate on: brought near by the blood of Christ. The blood not only saves us. The blood not only cleanses us. The blood sanctifies us by drawing us near to Christ.
This speaks, of course, of Gentiles who were far, far from God and of Jews who were near, though they too needed the grace of salvation. Paul says that by the blood of Christ, Gentiles have been brought near to God—brought into the holy temple, into the household of God, into the inheritance, and into the house God is building as a holy temple in the Lord.
You have been brought near by the blood of Christ. What a wonderful statement that is.
Is that not almost the basic message of the whole book of Hebrews? Draw near by the blood of Christ to the throne of grace and mercy. Draw near by the blood of Christ into the holiest place.
You can picture a believer standing and trembling outside all that is holy in life. Then the High Priest comes and, by the sprinkling of His own blood, says, “Now, My son, come with Me. We are going right into the Holy of Holies.”
“Whoa, whoa, wait. How about just going into the holy place?” But He says, “No, no, no. The curtain is down. We can go right in. I will show you how to come in.” The High Priest takes us right into the Father’s throne of grace and mercy. Wonderful.
Brought near by the blood of Christ. Draw near by the blood of Christ. It is only by the blood of Christ that we dare enter in.
Think of those believers in the wilderness when the tabernacle was first constructed. When they came to bring a sacrifice, they must have been terrified. But the priest came out, brought them in, laid hands on the animal, showed them how it was done, and the sacrifice was consumed. “I made it. The sacrifice was accepted.”
Praise God, the priest helped them along the way. So we are to draw near by the blood of Christ. The blood of Christ does not drive us away. The blood of Christ says, “Come, come, come. The way has been prepared.”
A new and living way has been opened to us by the blood of Christ. The blood tells us to draw near.
I will end with this simple Scripture in John 6. Our Lord is speaking hard words to the people, but what He says to those who believe is very precious.
Beginning in John 6:52:
Then the Jews began to argue with one another, saying, “How can this man give us His flesh to eat?”
So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in yourselves.
He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.
For My flesh is true food, and My blood is true drink.
He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him.”
It should be apparent what He is talking about. This eating of His flesh and drinking of His blood has nothing to do with any sort of carnivorous activity. It has everything to do with abiding in Him.
Through that abiding in Him, by that blood and by that flesh, is the life that we need. How will we live by His overcoming life? By abiding in that life—constant abiding. This is my plea.
As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats Me, he also will live because of Me.
This is the bread which came down out of heaven; not as the fathers ate and died. He who eats this bread will live forever.
Abiding by His precious blood, abiding in Him—this is the overcoming life. The Lord has made provision for us. We will see it tomorrow morning as we come to the Lord’s table.
We have a right to abide, and He abides in us. We overcome by His wonderful life. By His precious blood, He has brought us into that position of victory, into that possession of God. He keeps us because we are His. That is our position under the blood of Christ.
But our practice is the daily walk in the sanctifying work of the Spirit: obedience and sprinkling, obedience and sprinkling. Walk in the light as He is in the light. When we sin, confess our sins. In this way, we keep our conscience clear.
When our heart condemns us, we go and say, “Lord, what is it? Is there something in our conscience? Is there something we are doing wrong?” Our conscience will tell us, and we do business with the Lord. We keep short accounts.
Young people hear this all the time, but to me it is the absolute key to overcoming day by day: keep short accounts with the Lord. If you have done something wrong, confess it by tonight. Do not let it go on for weeks, because then you get out in the shadows where the enemy can lay hold of something in your life and begin to tear you down.
Stay in the Lord. Confess your sins. “Oh, but I cannot confess that sin anymore, because I have already done it a hundred times today.” Well, if you have to do it seventy times seven today, if your heart can still, by faith, say, “Lord, forgive me. I have sinned,” then the Lord is still faithful and just.
It is humiliating to ask forgiveness time and time again. But that humiliation turns out to be our victory. We find nothing in ourselves to boast of. We find ourselves to be all weakness, but kept by the Strong One.
So we come and daily confess. Through that confession, we daily abide. How wonderful to abide in Him, and He in us. This is a life which, more than we realize, is overcoming the evil one.
The enemy is always looking for something in us—something he can lay hold of, something he can bring accusation about. He is looking even to condemn our hearts. Do not let him do it. Do not let him do it.
Live the life of the little child who knows his conscience is clear and the precious blood is continually cleansing. He can ask whatever he needs. His Father approves of him, and he is obeying the commandments: obedience and sprinkling, obedience and sprinkling.
May the Lord encourage all of us, brothers and sisters, as we walk together in the light, to overcome by the precious blood of the Lamb.