Okay, now that’s a little more like it—a little power in the blood. You know, there are a lot of songs on the blood, and they are all very precious. But this is the song this morning that I think expresses the burden on my heart: that we, even as Christians who have known the Lord for a long time, sometimes forget the mighty power that is in the blood of Jesus Christ.
Nothing better strengthens the foundation in our life than a refreshing in that marvelous blood—in the power of the blood of Jesus Christ.
We have been talking about this series, So Great a Salvation, and that our foundation is in Jesus Christ. He is our foundation, and there is no other foundation that can be laid than that which is laid in Jesus Christ.
The question is, though: How solid? How well has that foundation been laid in your life? Has it been laid in my life? Because, brothers and sisters, that is what our life has to grow on spiritually. We need that solid foundation—no cracks in it.
There is no crack in the foundation that was laid eternally in Jesus Christ. But sometimes we do not quite understand the mightiness and the value of the foundation that has been laid in Jesus Christ.
You know, I work with Ken at a structural engineering firm, and we all know one thing: what will bring a building down is a weak foundation. A weak foundation is the cause of many of the problems that we go out and look at in buildings around the Richmond area.
So, brothers and sisters, this matter of the foundation needs to be strong in our lives.
Lord, we do come to You this morning. We have come under the power of Thy blood, Lord Jesus. It has done a mighty work, even in our salvation.
Lord, we thank You. We ask this morning, Lord, though we may not say anything new, that it will come across in the power that You intended for Your blood to have in the lives of Your saints. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Let us begin with a few Scriptures. Colossians 1:20:
Having made peace through the blood of His cross,
By Him to reconcile all things unto Himself;
By Him, whether things in earth, or things in heaven.
Peace has been made with God only through the blood of Jesus Christ. It is the only way you can have peace with God Himself. It is through His blood that He has been able to reconcile you back to God.
It is one thing to be adverse to God in your life through your sins, through your deliberate walking away from God, or through a lack of trying to acknowledge Him in your life. But, brothers and sisters, you can be reconciled, and that is only through the blood of Jesus.
In Hebrews 9:12, speaking of Christ, it says:
By His own blood He entered in once into the holy place,
Having obtained eternal redemption.
Brothers and sisters, He went before the Father with His own blood, before the throne, into the holy place, and offered His blood on your behalf—that you might obtain not only redemption, but eternal redemption.
Eternal in nature means it is secure; it is fast; it can never be undone. You have eternal redemption in Jesus Christ. Praise the Lord. It is not a temporal redemption that is preached in some places and by some denominations, where they say you can lose it. Brothers and sisters, it is eternal, fixed in Christ, and can never be undone. Praise the Lord.
It is because of the power of the blood of Christ.
Ephesians 1:7 says:
In Him we have redemption through His blood,
The forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace.
Brothers and sisters, it is one thing to be at odds with God. What a glory it is when we are reconciled to Him. And the way we are reconciled to Him is through the blood of Christ. It says He will forgive us.
Sometimes, when we are at odds with a brother or sister or someone else, we can go and ask forgiveness, but they will not forgive us. What a tragedy.
But because of the blood of Jesus, you will be forgiven if you come to the Father. He cannot reject the power that is in the blood. Though you have offended Him, He is willing to look at the blood of His own Son, Who paid the price for that sin in your life, and He is able, therefore, to say, “I forgive you.” And you are reconciled.
Hebrews 10:19 says that we can boldly enter into the holiest—in other words, into the very throne room of God—by the blood of Jesus.
You know, a lot of places you go to, you have to have a card to swipe to get in the door, or some kind of tag that says, “I belong here.” Well, brothers and sisters, you have access to the Father, to God, because of the blood of Jesus.
When He sees the blood of Jesus on your heart, you have access to the throne room.
1 Peter 1:18-19 says that you were redeemed. I like the word ransomed. You were ransomed from your futile life by the precious blood of Christ.
Did you know a life without God, a life without Christ, is a futile life? It can be lived in all of its glory, brothers and sisters, but in the end it is of no value before God. It is a futile life that we will live without Christ.
But we have been ransomed. The price has been paid to restore us back to God, and it is the precious blood of Jesus. Your soul has been ransomed by the blood of Christ.
Revelation 12:11 says:
They overcame by the blood of the Lamb.
Brothers and sisters, do you want to live an overcoming life? You are going to have to know the value of the blood of the Lamb. You are going to have to exercise its power in your own life in order to overcome Satan, overcome yourself, and overcome all the wiles of the enemy. It is by the blood of the Lamb.
All of fallen creation, all that God had created, fell into darkness because of the sin of man. A great gulf is between us and God, but that gulf has been bridged through Jesus Christ in the shedding of His blood on Calvary’s cross.
We had sold ourselves through sin to the enemy. Satan is the prince of your life without the blood of Christ. It is through the blood of Christ that you have been set free, redeemed, brought back into the kingdom of God, and taken out of the kingdom of darkness.
Do you realize that from the time you were born, out of your mother’s womb, you were in the kingdom of darkness? But when you accept Jesus Christ, when you accept that shed blood as a sacrifice for who you are, for your sins, and for your fallen nature, you are set free. You are brought into the kingdom of God for the first time. Praise His name.
How is it that the shed blood of Christ has such power? Where does it get such value from and have such power to do such things as we have already talked about?
Brothers and sisters, the blood of Calvary would have no power at all if it were not for the One Who died there—our Lord Jesus Christ. It has power because of His blood, because of His character, because of Who He is.
The cross, brothers and sisters, was an outward expression of the inward life and nature of our Lord Jesus Christ. You need to get that deep into your heart.
The cross two thousand years ago, on which our Lord Jesus Christ died, was only the outward expression of what had been in His heart from eternity: that self-sacrificing love. The cross was the expression of Jesus Christ and His nature. That is why the cross and the blood have such power.
In Leviticus 17:11, it says:
The life of the flesh is in the blood:
And I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls.
God is very clear that the only thing that can atone for a lost soul is blood, and we know it has to be righteous blood.
Let me say it another way: the blood of Christ has efficacy. In other words, it is effective. That is what the word efficacy means. It has power. It has effect.
It is powerful because the character of the life of our Lord Jesus gives to that blood that flowed through His veins its value. The very character and nature of the life of our Lord Jesus gives that blood value. And that value before God is great.
God greatly values the blood of His Son. Because God values it so much, that is why it has so much power—because God is pleased with it.
During Roman rule, thousands were crucified on crosses. Thousands of men—mostly men—shed their blood there. But, brothers and sisters, none of those acts of crucifixion had any effect that was able to save the soul of any one of those men. Their shed blood was not able to atone for their sins or for who they were.
But what we need to remember is that the blood is precious. What is true is that the blood of the martyrs speaks before God.
The martyrs are under the altar right now—all those who gave up their lives for the testimony of Jesus, for the sake of His name, and for His Word. They were killed because of their devotion to God; they would not back down in the face of the enemy. That blood speaks to heaven. Think about it.
In Genesis 4:10, we have the account of Cain. Remember, Abel and Cain made an offering to God. Abel offered most likely a lamb; he was a shepherd. Cain offered the works of his hands—the fruit of his farming.
God was very pleased with Abel’s offering, but He was displeased with Cain’s offering. Brothers and sisters, we need to understand what happened here.
There is no doubt in my heart that Adam and Eve explained to their two sons what had happened in the garden—how they had fallen before God and sinned before their God. He had to slay animals and give them skins for a covering, because they had lost the image of God in their lives. They needed to be covered, and it required the covering of a slain animal.
Abel understood this. Abel received it. When the offering was to be given, he offered the blood of what was most likely a lamb.
Cain could have gone to his brother and said, “I need one of your lambs to please God.” He did not do that. He said, “No, I am going to take whatever I have grown—corn or whatever—and offer it to God: the work of my hands. I can earn my way.”
And God said, “No, that is not an acceptable offering.” Only the blood can atone for the sins of men—not the work of men’s hands. Your good works and good deeds will never prevail before God, because He says in His Word that our good deeds are only as filthy rags, stained by self-interest and the self-life in our own lives.
This is what God said to Cain:
The voice of thy brother’s blood crieth unto Me from the ground.
Abel had offered that righteous offering. Abel’s blood was precious to the Lord. He was one who stood for the testimony of God at that time in his life, and he was slain. The Lord says, “The blood speaks to Me.”
Abel’s blood spoke. He did have a life before God. His righteous sacrifice God remembered. The effect of Abel’s blood was to speak to God of the injustice that had been done.
But, brothers and sisters, the blood of Christ speaks loudly before God. It speaks not only of all the injustice and sins of mankind; it is able to deal with the sins and injustices of man—to obliterate sin before the eyes of God because of the power that is in the blood of Christ.
In Revelation 1:5-6, it says:
Unto Him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in His own blood,
And hath made us kings and priests unto God and His Father.
This morning, I want to ask you: Have you gone to the Lord and had your sins washed away? If you have never known the Lord, of course there is that first time to come to Him, and those sins can be washed away forever—all that you have committed before the Lord Jesus, before God.
Oh, your distance from God can be closed in an instant by putting faith in the power of the blood that, the Word says, can wash away your sins and make you white as snow.
Colossians 1:20 says that we have peace with God. In other words, once your sins have been taken care of by the blood, you are now at peace with Him. Your conscience has been cleansed because you do not sense the guilt of sin anymore, because it is gone.
You are no longer under the wrath of God, brothers and sisters. You have been set free from that because of the blood of Jesus.
Romans 5:9 says that we are justified by His blood. Do you know what it means to be justified, brothers and sisters? It means just as if you had never sinned.
You come before God and present the blood: “I have sinned, Lord, and I take the precious blood of Jesus for my sins. I believe the blood can cleanse me from my sin.”
As you stand before God, He says, “I see you there. I see the blood. You are now just before Me—just as if the sin had never occurred.” In fact, the Word says that He remembers our sins no more. Once He sees that blood, they are gone forever out of His mind.
Unfortunately, brothers and sisters, that is not true of many people we go to and ask forgiveness. They still remember, do they not? They still bring it back before you. But with God, amazingly, He can forget it, and it is gone. I cannot explain that, but He can.
In Ephesians 1:7, we have been redeemed by His blood and forgiven. The purchase price for your soul is the blood of Jesus Christ. You have been saved from the bondage of Satan, the prince of the air.
Hebrews 9:14 says that you have been freed from guilt by the blood.
If you go to court for something you have done wrong, and you are found guilty and serve your time, you have served your time. But as far as the rest of the people are concerned, you are still guilty of that crime. You have paid for it, but you were guilty of it.
Brothers and sisters, by the blood of Jesus, the guilt is no longer there. You are not guilty of that crime because it is gone. Do you see how far-reaching and how powerful the blood of Christ is?
What peace we can have if we can just believe in the power of the blood.
In Hebrews 13:20, we find that the blood is the seal of God’s eternal covenant between you and Him.
This table we took this morning says, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood.” A covenant is a guarantee—a contract between God and you, signed in the blood of Jesus Christ. That is what you have with God.
He says He will put His law in your heart. In other words, you do not have to live by outward rules anymore. You have that unction in your heart that says, “You know, this is not right,” or, “This is what you need to do.” You follow that unction.
But if you do not follow it, you have to go back to God and confess it, saying, “I failed, but I come by the blood of the Lamb.” The Lord can forgive you, and He is just to forgive you because the blood has been shed for that sin you have just committed.
He said, “You will be My God.” It is an eternal covenant. You will be His forever. It cannot be lost. “You will be My people. I will give you a new heart.”
Before you came to Christ, you had that old heart. It did not particularly want God. It did not particularly want to go the ways of God. It preferred to do whatever you wanted yourself, to please yourself. You were not interested in pleasing God.
But when you finally accepted Christ, when you knew what the value of that blood was for you—that you have been purchased—you are no longer purchased to live for yourself. You have been purchased to live for Christ.
He puts a new heart in you, and that heart says, “Yes, I want to live for the Lord. I want to follow Him.” That is just what He does when you come to Jesus Christ. What power there is in the blood of Jesus: a new heart.
Now, unfortunately, we can get a crusty heart again, can we? We all experience that through not being obedient, or just not listening to the Lord. Our hearts can get crusty and hardened.
Once again, brothers and sisters, the only thing that can soften a crusty heart is the blood of Christ. You have to come back to Him on that basis. It is the only way—just by the blood.
“I will put a new spirit in you,” He says in that new covenant. The blood has sealed that. You have the Holy Spirit when you accept Jesus Christ. You have a new life in you. You have the life of Christ in you, and you have the Holy Spirit that empowers that life, that you can live the life that God wants.
He will still make demands on you through the Spirit inside, but the life that you now have is able to meet those demands. Before, you could not meet those demands in yourself. What an amazing power there is in the cross and in the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ.
The eternal covenant has been sealed with the blood of Christ.
So great is the effectiveness of the blood—the efficacy of the blood—and its value. Its voice speaks so loudly. The words are very clear: through the blood of Christ, He has reconciled all things back to Himself. It has been done in eternity.
Later on, we will see that what He has done in the eternal has to be applied today in your life in the natural.
When Jesus Christ shed His blood, that righteous blood before the Father, the Father was so pleased with the work that His Son had accomplished. His Son did say, “It is finished,” and, “Father, I commit My spirit into Thy hands.”
Remember, prior to that He said, “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” That is because, at that moment, He was taking on your sin and taking on my sin. He died for your sins and my sins.
But once that was completed, and the work of redemption and the power of the blood were in place, He said, “It is finished.” He did not merely say it; He said it with a loud voice. It was a declaration that the work was done and complete in Jesus Christ in His work on Calvary’s cross.
Then He said, “Father, I commit Myself into Thy hands.” He knew He was going into death at that point, but He trusted in His Father that He would raise Him from the dead.
The Father was so pleased that indeed He raised Him from the dead after He had overcome Satan and the enemy, and taken the keys of hell and death from our enemy.
Brothers and sisters, we as Christians in Christ no longer have to worry about death. The keys are in our Lord’s hands. The sting of death is gone because we will not suffer eternally in hell, but we will be with our Lord Jesus Christ in His presence, before His face.
That is the power that is in the cross and in the blood of Jesus Christ.
When He went back to the throne, it says, “Behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah hath prevailed to open the book, and to loose the seals thereof.” He has come forward to open the seals of the book, to bring about the future kingdom of God.
What they saw, they thought, would be a lion. He was a lion because He had conquered sin, death, and the enemy. But what they saw was a Lamb. It was a lamb nature that had actually conquered the enemy.
It was as a Lamb slain from the foundation of the world that He had overcome the enemy.
Heaven now sang a new song. Ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands upon thousands—multitudes of angelic beings—began to sing a new song.
Before that, they had sung the song and praises of:
Holy, holy, holy,
Lord God Almighty,
Thou hast created all things for Thy pleasure.
That had been their song: glory and praise to the Creator. But now there was a new song:
Worthy art Thou to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength,
And honor, and glory, and blessing:
For Thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by Thy blood
Out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation.
What a glory, brothers and sisters. What a glorious song: “Thou hast redeemed us by Thy blood.”
We have been sharing on this matter of so great a salvation. That is the overall theme of laying this foundation in our lives: so great a salvation. This morning, I am just touching on one little part—the very beginning part—of this great salvation. But how important it is.
Last week, John was sharing that God has a purpose, and that purpose is anchored in eternity. God’s purpose is not dependent on what happens in this temporal world. He has established His purpose in the eternal.
The eternal is always present, always real. Brothers and sisters, we have a past, a present, and a future. But God is in eternity. He is living in eternity. It is eternal—in other words, it is always present with Him.
Our minds may not be able to comprehend that, but that is the power of the eternal. It is more real than what we experience in the temporal. We may experience a lot in our lives, but nothing comes up to the reality of what is done in the eternal in God and in Jesus Christ.
We are anchored in that. Praise the Lord. Your soul has been anchored in the eternal in Jesus Christ because He shed His blood for you.
Surely, when God created man, before Him stood His Son, the pattern. He said we were created in His image and in His likeness.
Satan at that time had usurped the authority of God on this earth and was reigning as prince of this earth, and it was in total darkness. But when God created man, He delegated authority to man.
He said to reign and rule over the earth, and to multiply and be fruitful. In other words, He delegated authority to Adam. Satan was no longer to be an authority over this earth.
But Adam willfully disobeyed. Eve was deceived, but Adam willfully disobeyed God. Read it, brothers and sisters. He fell into sin.
Not only that, but in his disobedience, you need to understand that it corrupted Adam’s nature. It corrupted his inner being. It corrupted their inner being, and all of their sons that would flow from Adam—of which we are one.
We are born with a corrupted nature, a fallen nature, a self-centered nature. Look at your little babies. What are they concerned about? Themselves. We are concerned about them, but they are concerned about themselves. We all have that nature from birth.
We were created in His image and after His likeness. Brothers and sisters, when Adam fell, when he disobeyed God, that image was gone. That glory was gone. That is what covered them, and it disappeared when they disobeyed.
They recognized it, and they said, “We are naked before God.” The glory was gone. That is why He put those animal skins on them to cover their nakedness, and it required blood, brothers and sisters.
Things were pretty tragic at that time. It seemed as if God’s purpose would fail, but God said, “No. I have a recovery scheme, and it is through My Son Jesus Christ.”
Romans 6:23 says that the wages of sin is death. The penalty for sin is death.
Isaiah 53:5 makes clear why Christ died on the cross:
He was wounded for our transgressions,
He was bruised for our iniquities:
The chastisement of our peace was upon Him;
And with His stripes we are healed.
He paid the price for our sins that we might have peace with God. By His stripes, we are healed—healed from the sickness of that sin nature.
Hebrews 9:22 is also very clear:
Without shedding of blood is no remission.
There is no forgiveness without the shedding of blood. The fall was great, brothers and sisters, but God’s salvation is much greater, and it is through Jesus Christ.
Brothers and sisters, there is the work of the cross, which I am talking about this morning. It deals with sins, the power of sin, the guilt of sin, being under the law, bringing us into grace, and overcoming the enemy.
There is the way of the cross that deals with your soul—your mind, your will, and your emotions. The Lord says, “Take up your cross daily, and follow Me.” It is not just a one-time event in your life.
Then there is the spirit of the cross: the development of the lamb-like nature in your own life, in your own nature.
It is so interesting, brothers and sisters, when you read the Word. We need to look at 1 Corinthians 1:18:
For the word of the cross is to them that are perishing foolishness;
But unto us who are saved it is the power of God.
Some versions say, “the word of the cross,” not merely “the preaching of the cross.” The word of the cross, to them that perish, is foolishness; but to us who are saved, it is the power of God.
The word of the cross is the power of God, brothers and sisters. We can learn the doctrine about the work of the cross, but I am telling you: if you want to experience the power of the cross, you have to receive it as a living word.
It is the word of the cross that is powerful, not merely the doctrine. It has to hit you in your heart, and that is where it is received. It has to be a living word, received as a word of faith.
The word of the cross is eternal and is a powerful force. We know from Revelation 13:8 and 1 Peter 1:20 that the Lamb was slain from the foundation of the world. In other words, the cross is eternal.
The word of the cross brings you into the eternal. What is real in the eternal is made real in your life when you receive the word of the cross. It is living and powerful.
What has been accomplished in the eternal can be accomplished in your life by the word of the cross and the power of the blood.
The cross was not an emergency action. It was in the heart of Christ from the foundation of the world—that self-sacrificing, eternal nature of Christ Himself.
Brothers and sisters, that nature was manifested at Calvary two thousand years ago. It was manifested upon this earth, but it had always been there in the eternal.
When our faith lays hold of what is eternal in Christ, it will manifest itself in our life in a power far superior to our feelings and our desires. It is powerful. It will enter into your soul and bring about so great a salvation.
It is because it is real in the eternal that it is real in your life.
I want to speak a little more about the blood itself. I have already said it was a powerful force because of the Man Who shed His blood there on Calvary. It has value and efficacy because of the nature of His own life—the life that He gave on Calvary’s cross.
It is interesting that the Word refers to Christ as our kinsman-redeemer.
Not only did our Lord have to live a perfect life, a sinless life, to qualify to be a redeemer; He had to be a kinsman-redeemer. In other words, He had to be like you and me. He had to be related to you and me.
That is why He took on flesh and blood, that He could be your kinsman-redeemer, fully qualified to redeem you.
God’s requirement was not that He merely say a magic word from heaven and we would be redeemed. No. He had to come and live as a man, live a perfect life, a sinless life, in perfect obedience.
He was tempted in every way, but without sin—a sinless life. Brothers and sisters, that is why He is called the spotless Lamb of God. Only that is an acceptable sacrifice for sin and for the soul of man.
The blood has power toward man, it has power before God, and it has power against Satan. Most of what I have said has been about the power it has toward you and me in redeeming us. Now I would like to add a little about the power of the blood before God.
Exodus 12:13 says:
When I see the blood, I will pass over you.
That is from the time when the Lord was about to deliver the nation of Israel from the bondage of Egypt. He said, “I am going to send an avenging angel on Egypt, and all the firstborn will die.”
The Egyptians had already begun slaying the male children of Israel so that they could not grow and could be kept under control. The Lord said, “I am now going to deal with the Egyptians.”
He said He was going to deal with everything in Egypt, even the Israelites. The avenging angel would come, and the firstborn of man and beast would die—the destroying angel, God’s judgment on an evil nation.
But He said, “For all those who trust Me, I want you to do something. I want you to take the blood of a spotless lamb and put it over the lintel of the door and down the doorposts on each side.”
That is the famous verse: “When I see the blood, I will pass over.” All the Israelites who went into their house did not see the blood, did they? It was God Who saw the blood.
When He saw the blood, the avenging angel would pass over, and all were saved. Millions came out of Egypt, brothers and sisters, because of the value and the power of the blood. Amazing.
But they had to have faith, did they not? What if a couple of Israelite families had said, “I do not believe that,” and did not put the blood over their doorposts? Their firstborn would have been slain.
That is what is happening in the world today because people will not trust in the blood of Christ.
After reading the story of how God passed over when He saw the blood, 1 Corinthians 5:7 says:
Christ our passover is sacrificed for us.
In other words, when God sees the blood of Christ, His judgment passes away from you. You are no longer under wrath. You are no longer under His judgment. You will never be judged in life or death again. It is gone.
Christ is your Passover because of His blood.
Hebrews 9:12 says, “By His own blood He entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for you and me.” It was His blood.
When God sees the blood on our hearts—through faith we take that blood—His judgment on us is gone. There will be no wrath from God upon us. We have escaped the judgment of sin and death.
Powerful before God is the blood. You will no longer be judged.
This story tells us something important, and probably I want you to remember this more than almost anything else I have said: the blood has to be applied personally.
Christ has died for all men. The price He paid was for all men. He took the sins of the world upon Himself for all men.
There is a theology called universalism that says because Christ died for all men and all sin was upon Him, everybody is saved regardless, and everybody is going to heaven. That is simply not true.
The blood has to be personally applied. The Israelites had to put that precious blood over their doors. God had to see it.
It is not enough merely to say Christ died for every man and leave it at that. You have to personally appropriate the value of that blood in your own life.
In Hebrews 10:19, it says, “Therefore, brethren, having boldness to enter into the holy place.” Brothers and sisters, you have access. God has such great respect for the blood that you can now approach the throne through the blood.
You can approach in no other way. Every time you approach, it is because of the blood on your heart.
A lot of times we will not go to God because we do not feel good that day, or we do not feel right, or we may have done something wrong. Then we do a few good things in the meantime and say, “Okay, now I am ready to go.” No, you are not.
You have to go with the blood. You have to have the blood take care of what you have done—what has made that distance between you and God. It takes the blood. You can only go on the basis of the blood and the righteousness of Christ.
When you accept Jesus Christ, when you take and have faith in the value of that blood and what it can do in your life, you need to know something: Christ puts His righteousness on you.
You stand righteous before God. He puts the robe of righteousness on you. When you come, He sees the blood; He sees the robe of righteousness that has been given to you by Jesus Christ; and He says, “You are acceptable. You can approach Me.”
That righteousness never changes, regardless of your conduct. The righteousness is Christ Himself. You have been put in Christ.
This fulfills Isaiah 61:10:
He hath clothed me with the garments of salvation,
He hath covered me with the robe of righteousness.
But it takes the blood in the beginning. Brothers and sisters, you may change, but your righteousness before God never changes. I find that most amazing. I find that most amazing.
The blood, brothers and sisters, is also powerful before your enemy—before Satan. We know his attacks. Revelation 12:11 tells us that the accuser of the brethren was cast down, who accused them before God day and night, and they overcame him by the blood.
The enemy not only attacks you and me with temptations, brothers and sisters, to tempt us to sin and to tempt us to disobey. He attacks us with accusations.
The accuser of the brethren has been cast down. It does not say the tempter has been cast down, but the accuser of the brethren has been cast down. Why? Because if the enemy can wound your conscience with an accusation, the boat of faith has a hole in it, and it will sink.
It is hard to operate before God with an offended conscience, with a wounded conscience. It is hard to come into fellowship with a wounded conscience. You want to stay home, do you not? You do not want to be around Christians with a wounded conscience. That is what it does to you.
You cannot stand before God with a wounded conscience.
In 1 Timothy 1:19, Paul encouraged Timothy to wage a good warfare, holding faith and a good conscience.
Sometimes the enemy attacks us and accuses us because he has ground to do so: you have sinned. But we need to keep short accounts before God.
It says, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins.” Now, we should not take advantage of that and say, “Well, I will sin anyway because God is going to forgive me.” That is despising the blood of Jesus, taking the blood of Jesus lightly.
Paul said that where sin abounds, grace much more abounds. But then he went on to say, does that mean we should sin more so that grace might abound more? That is ridiculous. No. You have been freed from sin. You should not sin.
But, brothers and sisters, the Word is very clear: if you repent in your heart and go before God and say, “I have sinned before You,” He will forgive you of your sins.
When you first accept Christ, all the sins of the past are gone. He has made provision for all the sins of the future. But once you become a Christian and sin, you need to confess it before Him. We need to be clear.
When your conscience is wounded, you are no longer at peace, are you? You get frustrated. You get frustrated with everything with a wounded conscience. I can guarantee you that.
I guarantee you that a lot of the little tiffs that you have with your wife, or your wife has with you, are because you have a wounded conscience and you are walking around with it. It affects you. It affects your relationship with your children, your family, your brothers and sisters, and your coworkers at work. A wounded conscience is dangerous.
You may go to the Lord and say, “Lord, I have sinned before You. I take the blood of Jesus Christ. Forgive me.” And He will. He forgets it.
But the enemy does not. He comes to you and says, “Look, I saw you sin. You are no good. You are only going to do it again. You are not worthy. Who do you think you are?” He accuses you.
That is when you need to be wise and say, “I do not accept that. I may have sinned, but the blood of Jesus Christ has obliterated that sin.” You have to have faith in the blood, or your conscience will sink, brothers and sisters.
I remember the story of Martin Luther, the reformer and leader of the Reformation. The story goes—it was either in a dream or in reality, I do not know—that the enemy appeared before him and accused him.
The enemy said, “Look, I have this whole scroll full of sins that you have committed. Look at them. How in the world can you even think about leading this Reformation, or trying to bring the Word of God to people? How can you do that? You are a sinner.”
Martin Luther replied, “Yes, I am a sinner. But hand me your scroll.” So the enemy did, and Luther looked at it and wrote over it, “Cleansed. My sins have been cleansed in the blood of the Lamb.” And Satan disappeared.
Brothers and sisters, that is really true. I do not know if you have had that happen in your life. I have in mine. There have been times when the enemy accused me unmercifully, and he was right.
I had to say, “But I have the blood of Christ. My sins have been cleansed. I believe that. I believe it with all my heart. They are gone. You might remember them, but God does not.” And he goes away. He has no ground.
Once you present the blood, there is no more ground, for the blood has paid for that sin. You have to stand by faith in the power of the blood, believing your sin has been dealt with.
Brothers and sisters, he will accuse you when you have not done anything. Have you ever had that happen? I have. You get this feeling that something is not right, and you cannot figure it out. The enemy is just pounding you with accusation. You do not know what is going on, but you feel awful.
That is the time you need to stand in the blood of Christ: “The blood of Christ has cleansed me from all sin.” The Word says, “Resist the devil, and he will flee.” In fact, it says, “Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.”
I want to be very clear: the Holy Spirit will convict you when you sin. His purpose is that you might come to God and accept the blood sacrifice for that sin before God, confessing it before Him. And it is gone.
In other words, the Holy Spirit wants to set you free from what you have done. So, it is conviction.
Sometimes we confuse conviction with accusation. The enemy accuses you incessantly. His purpose is to control you, to wound your conscience, to keep you from the saints, from fellowship with the saints, and from fellowship with God. That is the purpose of his accusation.
So, brothers and sisters, when you feel, “I do not want to be around any brothers or sisters,” you need to understand that something is going on.
If you have confessed that sin, you need to say, “Okay, there is the blood. The enemy can accuse me no more.” Do not be fooled by the enemy.
Ephesians 6 says that we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers of darkness. How can we be victorious when we are wrestling against such things?
First of all, brothers and sisters, you need to realize that the enemy uses things. He uses circumstances, environment, people, education, politics—anything he can to get you away from Christ. He is behind a lot of the disturbance in your life.
I remember many years ago, in the very beginning when the Lord was opening my eyes to His eternal purpose and all of His glory, we would come here every Wednesday night to pray.
Brothers and sisters, every Wednesday night I would get sick. I would get nauseated before I came. I would be at my house, and I would be nauseated. I said, “I am not going to let this stop me from going to prayer meeting.”
I would get to the Huguenot Bridge, and as soon as I crossed it, it would lift. The Lord said, “Jerry, you need to stand in My blood.”
That is when I began to learn the power of the blood toward the enemy. On Wednesday nights, as that nausea would come, I began to say, “No, I know where this is coming from, and I stand in the blood of Christ.” And it would go away.
I had to fight to even get here on Wednesday nights.
I remember one time the enemy got in my head, and a spirit of fear hit me. It stayed with me for over a year. I dealt with it, and if it had not been for Jessie Penn-Lewis, I do not know if I would ever have been freed. But I read her book, and that was where I discovered the enemy was attacking me.
He was attacking my mind. He was the one who put that spirit of fear in me. The only thing I knew to do was stand in the blood of Christ. I did, and brothers and sisters, eventually he went away and left me.
When that fear would come, I could not do anything about it. It would just overwhelm me. It would take me out.
In fact, I remember my boss at work saying to me, “Jerry, what is wrong with you?” Because it affected my work. I said, “Nothing is wrong.”
He said, “Jerry, I asked you to come to a meeting. The next day, I asked you to come to a meeting with me, and you walked out of my room and left.” I did not remember that. That is how affected I was by the enemy.
Brothers and sisters, he is an adversary out to destroy you. You need to know the value of the precious blood of Christ.
I remember another story. I was having a hard day. I was supposed to speak. Everything was going wrong—everything was going wrong.
I said, “I have got to get the grass mowed today. It is the only time I can do it.” So I was mowing the grass, and the belt came off the mower. You men know how hard it is to get a belt back on a mower. It is exasperating.
I was lying there on the ground trying to put the belt on, and it was like the Lord spoke to me. He said, “Jerry, what are you doing lying on your back? Stand up and plead the blood. You are being attacked.”
I did not know that. I thought these were just normal little things that occurred. But at that point, it was the enemy. The Lord let me know it was the enemy. I stood up and took the blood, and I did not have any more problems that day.
Now, I want to say that not every problem in your life is because of the enemy. But I will say that if you do have a problem, he likes to come in on it and add to it.
So, brothers and sisters, you need to really listen to the Holy Spirit. Keep short accounts through the blood of Jesus. You can overcome and stand.
Now, if you will give me five more minutes, I will wrap this thing up.
Do you trust in Christ? Do you believe this Word? Do you believe in the power of His blood?
This morning, has the word of the cross spoken to you, or is it just doctrine? It is the difference between reality and despair.
You must apprehend it personally by faith. You must believe it. You must have faith. You must trust in the victory of Christ on Calvary’s cross and the power of that blood.
Now I want to share one simple thing with you about trust, and this is very important. A lot of times we think we are trusting the Lord, and we really are not. We are trusting ourselves.
A couple of weeks ago, I went to a soccer game in Fredericksburg. My grandson was playing in it, and I went up with my son. He has this nice little iPhone with an app on it for trips, where you punch in where you are going.
I think it is an amazing device, by the way. I knew where we were going. It was up Route 17, and I knew you just went up to I-95 and turned west on Route 17.
We were probably a good twenty miles from Fredericksburg, and this thing routed us off. I said, “Son, where are you going?” He said, “Well, the app told me I needed to get off here.”
I said, “It is wrong. That is not right. This is not the right way.” He said, “No, Dad, it is right.”
I said, “Why would it tell you to get off here when you can just go right up there around Route 17 and go left?” He said, “Dad, this thing knows. There could be an accident up ahead, traffic could be backed up, or traffic might be slowed down. There could be a problem up there, and this thing routes you around those problems.”
I said, “Really?” He said, “Yeah. Dad, you have just got to trust. You have just got to trust.”
Wow. That hit me. I said to myself, “I still cannot trust this thing.”
Brothers and sisters, the Lord has a purpose for your life. He has provided everything you need in the work of Calvary for your life. You just need to trust Him.
He has got that app for your life. He knows where He is taking you. He wants to conform you to the image of Christ.
Now, the Lord is a little different. That app my son was listening to tried to take him around all the problems. The Lord’s app does not do that.
He knows He needs to conform you to Christ, so a lot of times He takes you right into a problem or right into an issue. A lot of times we have things in life that are perplexing, and we do not understand.
But I tell you what: we still need to trust God’s app for your life. He is leading you there for a purpose. Otherwise, He would not let you go through it.
We just have to trust Him.
Lord, we just come to You today. We thank You for Your precious Word. We thank You for Your precious blood, for the cross, and, Lord, that You said, “It is finished.”
What a great salvation we have. I pray that You will really open our eyes to see that, Lord, and that You will give us that faith.
Give us that faith of the Son of God—that trust when we do not see the future, when we do not see what is ahead, when we are perplexed by where You seem to be taking us.
Lord, give us that heart that says, “I can trust in Christ. He has shed His blood for me. He has died for me. He loves me more than anything.”
We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.