How To Appropriate The Blood

How to Appropriate the Blood

We’ve been looking at the price that God paid for our redemption and we saw that the price was the blood of Jesus. And we looked at one of the great Old Testament previews of how Jesus was to pay the final price and make the final sacrifice, which is found in the ordinance of the Day of Atonement described in detail in Leviticus chapter 16, which describes how the high priest was to go just once each year into the Most Holy Place, the Holy of Holies. And he had to go with two things: first of all, a censer filled with incense which gave out a beautiful aromatic cloud that covered him and covered the Mercy Seat. And secondly, he had to go with the blood of the sacrifice, which he’s offered on his own behalf. And going thus into the Most Holy Place, he had to sprinkle the blood seven times between the second veil where he entered and the Mercy Seat itself. And then he sprinkled the blood on the east side, which was the front side, of the Mercy Seat. So there was an initial sprinkling of the blood seven times. And I personally believe that this was an exact prophetic preview of how Jesus was to sprinkle His own blood on the way to the cross and on the cross.

We’ve invited some questions from people and some of them are rather searching questions. One of them, in essence, is: If the world is under the control of Satan, what does God control? That’s a very profound question.

Let me just point you to this fact: That though evil men were the instruments who crucified Jesus, and they had no idea of the significance of what they were doing, they did exactly and precisely what God had decreed beforehand they should do. So, although evil was apparently triumphant, in actual fact God was in absolute control of the situation and every prophecy that had been given in the Old Testament concerning the death of Jesus was exactly fulfilled down to the last detail.

I think that is a kind of lesson for us. No matter what evil may do, and no matter how people in this world may be under the control of Satan, God determines exactly what will happen. He’s in total, ultimate control. And God uses evil to bring His purposes to pass. You see, God used Satan to bring about the victory of the cross. If there’s one thing that Satan regrets, I’m sure it’s that he procured the crucifixion of Jesus, because he procured his own defeat. So that’s just by the way, but I think that when we look at the exact fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy in the life of Jesus, it reassures us that no matter how powerful or how wicked evil may be, God is in total control.

We’ll go probably into that question a little further in our question period if we have time, but it just occurred to me this is a very good way to illustrate the balance between Satan’s wickedness and God’s ultimate control.

Now we’ve looked at four ways in which the blood of Jesus was sprinkled on the way to the cross.

First of all, in the garden, He sweat great drops of blood.

Then in the court of the high priest, they struck Him on the face with rods. Incidentally, you notice, that was a fulfillment of a prophecy in Micah 5:1. We are not actually looking at all the Old Testament prophecies which were fulfilled, but I think you can find the prophecy for every single thing that happened to Jesus.

Then, Pilate handed Him over to be crucified, but according to the Roman custom of that day, before a person was crucified, he was scourged with a Roman scourge. Which was designed, I think, to hasten his ultimate death. It was a very cruel and barbarous act, in which the man was exposed bare and they laid these lashes across His back and they were studded with bone and metal. So they literally tore the flesh out. And, in that context, it says in Isaiah 50:6, as we just looked before we closed the last session:

I gave My back to those who struck Me,

And My cheeks to those who plucked out the [hair]....

Now we’ll go on with the next three ways in which the blood of Jesus was sprinkled. We turn now to Matthew 27 and verse 29. Now here it is the soldiers mocking Jesus:

And they stripped Him and put a scarlet robe on Him [or a purple robe].

I think purple is probably better because it was the color of royalty. And they were mocking Him. They were saying, “So you’re a King, so we’ll give you a king’s clothing.” So first of all, they gave Him this purple robe, which must then have been stained with His own blood, and then they gave Him a crown, but it was a crown of thorns.

And just for a moment, to give you another aspect of the perfectness of the atonement of Jesus—He not only atoned for the human race, but He atoned for the consequences that man’s sin had brought upon the earth. I mean, any way you look at this fulfillment, it is perfect.

God said to Adam when he sinned, “From now on, the earth will bring forth thorns and thistles.” The thistle is purple, the color of the robe that Jesus was clothed with; the thorns were real thorns. They will show you in Jerusalem today the type of thorns that they were. They’re very long spikes, very hard—as hard almost as nails, and extremely sharp.

And so, having put the purple robe on Him, they then crowned Him with thorns. We read this now in verse 28:

And they stripped Him and put a scarlet robe on Him.

When they had twisted a crown of thorns, they put it on His head, and a reed in His right hand. [That was His kingly staff.] And they bowed the knee before Him and mocked Him, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!”

Then they spat on Him, and took the reed and struck Him on the head.

And both with the reed and I’m sure with the hands, they pressed those thorns right down into His scalp. And of course, the scalp, when it’s penetrated, bleeds very freely. We have to picture Jesus with His beard pulled out, the marks of the beating with rods on His cheeks, the blood flowing down from His scalp on every side, coagulating in His beard.... It says in Isaiah 52, the more literal translation is, “He lost the very appearance of a man.” He no longer looked human.

So that was the fifth shedding of blood, was with the crown of thorns.

And then we come to the actual crucifixion, which is described in Matthew 27:35. And it said in three words, really that’s amazing. Any modern writer would have expatiated for paragraphs on all that happened. But all the Bible says is, “They crucified Him.” Well, we know from the practice of crucifixion, and also from the things Jesus said after His resurrection when He invited them to look at the marks of the crucifixion, we know that they pierced both His hands and His feet. And again, His blood came out profusely, especially, I believe, from the hand.

Generally speaking, today, they don’t believe that they pierced the palms of His hands, but the wrist (here), because medically speaking it would be very impossible—very difficult for Him with the palms of His hands to bear the weight of His body, but if the nails went in here, apparently there is strength to support the weight. So that was the sixth sprinkling of His blood.

And then we turn to John 19 for the seventh and final one. John 19, verse... well, we’ll read a little before... we’ll start from verse 31. Jesus has now died on the cross. And we read John 19:31:

Therefore, because it was the Preparation Day, that the bodies should not remain on the cross on the Sabbath (for that Sabbath was a high day [or a high holiday]), the Jews asked Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away.

If a person was being crucified and had not died, they would bring on death by breaking the legs. Because in order to keep breathing, a person could raise his body up with his legs but if his legs were broken, he couldn’t raise himself up. He would die really of choking.

Then the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first and of the other who was crucified with Him [that’s the two thieves].But when they came to Jesus and saw that He was already dead, they did not break His legs.

I pointed out to you earlier in these studies, He didn’t actually die of the physical effects of crucifixion, He died of a broken heart through rejection. Verse 34:

But one of the soldiers pierced His side with a spear, and immediately blood and water came out.

What they call apparently the pericardial sac, or fluid. I think we should read a little further, because again it’s another illustration of the total exactness of what happened.

And he who has seen [that’s the apostle John] has testified, and his testimony is true; and he knows that he is telling the truth, so that you may believe.

For these things were done [now notice the next phrase:] that the Scripture should be fulfilled....

Everything that happened was the fulfillment of God’s predetermined counsel revealed in Scripture. God never lost control of the situation for one moment.

. . . the Scripture should be fulfilled, “Not one of His bones shall be broken.” [That’s stated about the Passover Lamb, none of his bones was to be broken. And in spite of all that Jesus endured, none of His bones was broken.]

And again another Scripture says, “They shall look on Him whom they pierced.” [That is in Zechariah 12.]

So you see that every single detail was exactly ordered by God although it was very wicked, godless men who carried it out. And I think it’s important for you and me to realize we are not called upon to go through all that Jesus went through, but most of us at some time are subjected to the forces of evil and to unfair treatment and maybe brutality, who knows what. It’s good to know that no one can do anything more than God has ordained. He’s in ultimate control.

I’m glad that question came before the question period, because it really stimulated my own thinking.

So we have there the sevenfold sprinkling of the blood of Jesus. But, as far as I understand, and this is an area where it’s not always easy to be certain, the sprinkling on the Mercy Seat took place later. We’ll come to that in the course of this study.

Now I want to turn to two passages in the Old Testament which I believe help us to understand the full implications of the shedding of the blood of Jesus. The first is in Leviticus 17. And you could say Leviticus is a pretty dull book, but in the midst of it there are the most marvelous jewels of truth. And the theme of Leviticus really is that God’s people must not at any time partake of the blood of any animal that they eat.

And I hope you Christians all know that still applies to Christians. Do you know that? Because in Acts... well, we’d better turn there for a moment. We need to know that. There’s a great deal of ignorance on this subject.

In Acts 15, the early church, which was exclusively Jewish, had to face the problem of what to do with Gentiles who were believing in Jesus. And there was one party that said, “Well, they’ve got to come under the law of Moses, be circumcised, keep the law, become (in effect) Jews, then they can be saved.” But Paul and Barnabas and also the apostle Peter and James took their stand against this and said no, that isn’t necessary. And Peter said, “We Jews couldn’t observe the law and keep it, why should we try to make the Gentiles observe something we couldn’t observe.”

Incidentally, let me just point out that in the last decade there’s been a very interesting (what would I say) turn of events because the Assemblies of God in America have a branch of their outreach (if you could call it) which is in the form of Messianic Assemblies. How many of you have ever contacted a Messianic?

They’re doing a really very significant work. They’re a kind of bridge between the church and the Jewish community. Because, you may not realize it, but the average Jew walking into a church is simply horrified. Everything in it revolts him and most of all the cross. Because for the Jewish people it’s an emblem of about sixteen centuries of persecution. I can’t have time to go into that, but it’s important that we understand it.

Anyhow, since the number of Messianic Assemblies has multiplied and has become a significant group, the Assemblies of God, General Council, had to determine what to do with them. Could they become full members of the Assemblies of God? Or what status were they to have? And one of the leaders stood up after awhile and said, “Well, brothers, nineteen centuries ago, they let us in. I don’t think we can keep them out!” It was really an interesting commentary on how the thing has gone full cycle.

Anyhow, this was the determination of the council at the end. And we could go through the discussion, but we’ll simply take the summation in Acts 15:28 and 29:

For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit, and to us [that’s the kind of decision we need to arrive at in the church—where it seems good to the Holy Spirit and to us. Sometimes we leave the Holy Spirit out.]

. . . it seemed good to the Holy Spirit, and to us, to lay upon you [Gentiles] no greater burden than these necessary things [What are they?]:

that you abstain from things offered to idols, from blood, from things strangled, and from sexual immorality.

There are four prohibitions:

Things offered to idols

Eating blood

Things strangled — Why things strangled? Because if a thing is strangled, the blood remains in it. And sexual immorality.

And you’ll notice that partaking of blood is put in the same category with sexual immorality. You see, our standards are not always those of God’s. So I’m just saying that without any extra charge. Being a Gentile myself, I’m in the same category with you, where there are four things we have to observe.

Nothing eaten to idols

Not partaking of blood

Not eating things strangled

And not indulging in sexual immorality.

You see, in some parts of the world they eat what they call Blood Pudding. I don’t suppose you’ve ever... That’s absolutely forbidden for Christians. Just the same, in God’s sight, as immorality. Now, as I say, this isn’t part of my study, but I’m not making any extra charge for it. If you could see the look on your faces, it’s really comical. Well, if it was only Derek Prince that said it, but when it was all the apostles of the early church who agreed about it with the Holy Spirit, there’s some authority in there.

All right. Now we’re going back to Leviticus 17, which is dealing with the issue of the not partaking of the blood. And there are various regulations given as to how they should avoid that. And in verse 10 of Leviticus 17, the Lord says through Moses:

“‘And whatever man of the house of Israel, or of the strangers who sojourn among you, who eats any blood, I will set My face against that person who eats blood, and will cut him off from among his people. [Now the Lord gives a reason, but this reason is also one of the most wonderful prophecies of the Bible.]

‘For the life of the flesh is in the blood....’”

Now let me go back. We did some talking earlier about soul, you remember, and the soul life? Well, where it says “the life of the flesh,” the Hebrew says “the soul of the flesh,” nephesh, Arabic noph, once again. So it’s the soul life that’s in the blood.

Now we know when the blood ceases to circulate, there’s no more life in the body.

“‘For the life of the flesh is in the blood [now listen], and I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your soul....’”

So it sounds like it’s just a regulation. You’re going to use the blood to make atonement, therefore you do not partake of it. But it’s also prophetic because the Lord is speaking and He says, “I have given it to you upon the altar [of the cross] to make atonement for your soul[s]....” So, on the cross Jesus gave His soul-life, which was in His blood, as the redemption price for our souls. Because the law of redemption is an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, burning for burning, beating for beating, soul for soul. So, on the cross Jesus gave His soul to redeem every soul of humanity.

Now if you turn to Isaiah 53, which is the great atonement chapter, and we spent a lot of time there earlier. Isaiah 53, the last verse of the chapter, verse 12. Well, I just want to confirm something—while you’re at that page, look for a moment at the last verses of Isaiah 52, which, as I pointed out earlier, are the introduction to 53. And verse 13 begins with: “Behold, My Servant.” It’s the introduction to the Servant of the Lord, the Suffering Servant. And it says, “He shall deal prudently, He shall carry out the whole will of God. He shall be exalted and extolled and be very high.” And Philippians 2:9 says: “Wherefore God has also highly exalted Him and given Him the name that is above every name.”

So before it depicts His humiliation, it promises His ultimate exaltation. Do you know what I think we should look at for a moment—at His humiliation in the New Testament. I have a feeling it’s very important. So you can leave your finger out of Acts, we’ve finished with that. Keep your finger in Isaiah 52 and 53, and turn to Philippians 2. I will just read from verse 5. Philippians 2:5:

Let this mind be in you [Learn to think the way that Jesus thought] which was also in Christ Jesus,

Now, this is His sevenfold humiliation:

who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God

Better translation: did not consider equality with God something to be grasped at. He had it by divine, eternal right. He didn’t need to grasp at it. But:

but made Himself of no reputation

The Greek says, literally, He emptied Himself. One of Charles Wesley’s hymns says He emptied Himself of all but love.

taking the form of a servant

That’s the second step down. But He could have still been an angel and been a servant.

coming in the likeness of men.

He came down to the level of man, which is a little lower than the angels.

And being found in the appearance as a man,

He was nothing special. He was just an ordinary man, the carpenter’s son.

He humbled Himself

He became a humble man. He wasn’t a priest, or a ruler. He was a workingman. I heard years ago a preacher who prayed to Lord, and said, “Lord, show me Your hands.” And the Lord answered and gave him a vision of His hands. He expected to see the nailprints in the hands, but he didn’t. He saw the hands of an ordinary working man. It really impressed him. He was a humble man.

. . . and [He] became obedient... to death

That’s the sixth step down. The ultimate step down is:

. . . the death of the cross.

I wonder if I should put those up for you, if I can. Be patient with me. All right.

Number 1. (I’m not going to do it with anything but the steps.

No reputation. That’s really a poor translation. Your modern translations say “emptied Himself,” I think. Isn’t that right? That’s exactly what it means. All right. I tell you, the Holy Spirit is in this. Because if there’s anything we contemporary Christians need to understand, it’s this.

Number 2. A servant. (But you understand, He could have still been an angel.)

Number 3. Coming in the likeness of men. Human form. But He could have been an Adamic perfection.

Number 4. Let’s put Human Appearance. When Peter said, “You are the Christ.” He said, “Flesh and blood has not revealed this to you.” There was nothing in His outward appearance to indicate who He was.

Number 5. A Humble Man. Just a carpenter’s son. Without disparaging carpenters, who I think are wonderful people.

Number 6. Obedient to death. But He could have died on a sick bed. He didn’t.

Number 7. What kind of a death? The cross. The death of a criminal, in agony and shame.

Now those are the seven steps down. When you’ve written them down, I think we’ll get our dear sister here to wipe them off because then I’ll put the seven steps up. You see how perfect the structure of the Bible is. You have to remember that these were just written as letters. Paul doesn’t sit down and have a theological scheme. I don’t believe he even made an outline, myself. But the Holy Spirit guided him with total exactness.

All right. Now. There is a very important word in verse 9: Therefore. Did you notice that? Therefore. Because of what? Because He humbled Himself. You see, Jesus Himself said, “Whoever humbles himself will be exalted, but whoever exalts himself will be abased.” That applies to everybody. I think I said already the two great examples are Satan (who was Lucifer, who exalted himself, reached up for something he wasn’t entitled to and fell). Jesus, on the other hand, was entitled to a position of equality with God, voluntarily renounced it, and went down. And now here’s the “therefore”—as a result of His humbling Himself. Jesus didn’t receive the position He has in the universe as a favorite son. He earned it. He qualified for it. How? By humbling Himself. All right.

Now let’s look at the seven steps up.

Therefore God also has highly exalted Him...

Now if you turn back to Isaiah 52:13 you find, “He shall be exalted and extolled and be very high.” I think the rabbis interpret that: “He will be made higher than Abraham, high than Moses and higher than the angels.” All right. We’re back in Philippians 2:9:

Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name,

And notice it’s “the” name. The old King James says “a name” but the real translation is “the name.” The one name that’s above every name. (I think you can start to wipe that off now.)

that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus [the Messiah] is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

(Thank you for wiping that off.)

Let’s look now at the exaltation.

Number 1. Highly exalted.

Number 2. The name above every name. I feel so good when I write that.

Number 3. Every knee shall bow at His name.

Number 4. Things in heaven (people in heaven, if you want).

Number 5. Things on earth.

Number 6. Things under the earth.

Number 7. What is number 7? Every tongue shall confess.

Do you see how perfect that structure is? Seven steps down; seven steps up. If you want to write that down, you’re welcome to do it. That was all because we went to Isaiah 53. I have to keep in mind why we got there, so I know where to go next.

We were going to Isaiah 53 to verse 12, which is exactly in line with Leviticus 17:11. Leviticus 17:11 says: “the soul of all flesh is in the blood.” Isaiah 53:12 says:

Therefore I will divide Him a portion with the great,

And He shall divide the spoil with the strong,

Because He poured out His soul unto death....

How did He pour out His soul unto death? In what? In His blood. It was through His blood that He gave His soul. He gave, I believe myself, the last drop of His blood—He gave His whole soul as the one, final, all-sufficient sin offering for the world.

If you look in Isaiah 53:10 it says:

Yet it pleased the [Father] to bruise Him;

He has put Him to grief.

When you make His soul an offering for sin...

Or, when His soul makes a sin offering. His soul was the ultimate sin offering and He poured out His soul in His blood. I hope you can see how very precise the Bible is, how very exact. How every part of it fits together. No human mind could ever have devised that. Something written by Moses, something written by Isaiah, something written by Paul—men separated by centuries. I tell you, it’s silly not to believe the Bible. It’s not clever, it’s silly. There’s a lot of people that think they’re clever, but they’re really silly.

All right. Now. Let’s go on to what has been accomplished by the shed blood of Jesus. All right. I’m following my outline, but I’m changing... no I’m not. I’ll go this way.

First of all, how to appropriate what has been provided for us through the shed blood of Jesus. And I want to go back to one of my favorite passages, which is Revelation 12:11. (I think if you can wipe that off now. Have you copied that down? Got it where you can get it down? All right.)

Revelation 12:11 says:

“And they overcame him [“they” is the believers on earth; “him” is Satan] by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death.”

We’ve already spoken about the fact that it’s only people who have lost their life who are in this category. You remember what the steps were to following Jesus? Deny yourself. Take up your cross. Lay down your life. And find a new life. So these people are those who have done this. They qualify to defeat Satan. Satan is not the least bit scared of uncommitted Christians. And uncommitted Christians can pray and do all sorts of things and preach, but they don’t really have any impact on Satan. The only people he’s frightened of is the committed ones.

Now, here is what I believe the Lord showed me... I mean, it’s not a vision, revelation, but it’s just an insight into Scripture. How do we overcome Satan? Well, all Pentecostals (not all, but most) know it’s by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of our testimony. But they tend to make it a kind of, well, a repetitive phrase. I plead the blood... I plead the blood... I plead the blood. I don’t want to underestimate that, but I’ve observed that sometimes it doesn’t impress the devil. I think we have to apply it more intelligently.

How do we overcome Satan? By the blood of the Lamb and by the word of our testimony. There are in that, as I understand it, three elements: the blood, the Word (which is the Word of God), and our testimony. And this is how I interpret it:

We overcome Satan when we testify personally to what the Word says the blood does for us.

Understand, we’ve got take from (if you like) the “blood bank” and get it into our lives. Now, just to take a parallel from the Passover ceremony. We go to Exodus 12 for a moment. This is the ordinance of the Passover. And you remember that that was God’s provision of deliverance and salvation for Israel in Egypt. Each family had to take a lamb (the father, incidentally, and no one else in the family could do it)—had to kill, sacrifice the lamb, catch its blood in the basin and that was the sacrifice. This is a tremendous demonstration to me of the responsibility of fathers as priests of their families. Every father had to act as the priest in his family.

Now the lamb had been killed, its blood had been caught in the basin, but its blood in the basin didn’t protect any Israelite family. They had to get the blood from the basin to the place where they lived. And how did they do it? Well, this is what they did: Exodus 12:21:

Then Moses called for all the elders of Israel and said to them, “Pick out and take lambs for yourselves according to your families, and kill the Passover lamb.

“And you shall take a bunch of hyssop, dip it in the blood that is in the basin, and strike the lintel and the two doorposts with the blood that is in the basin. And none of you shall go out of the door of his house until morning.

“For the Lord will pass through to strike the Egyptians [the Hebrew word is passachwhich is what they call the Hebrew word for Passover. So passachmeans “to pass by.”]

“For the Lord will pass through to strike the Egyptians; and when He sees the blood on the lintel and on the two doorposts, the Lord will pass over [that’s the word Passover] the door and not allow the destroyer to come into your houses to strike you.”

Now there are two important regulations. First of all, they had to get the blood from the basin to where they lived, and there was only means provided and that was hyssop. Many will know that hyssop is a very common plant that grows all over the Middle East. There’s no problem finding a hyssop. So they had to pick a bunch of the hyssop, dip it in the blood, and strike it on the lintels, the top and two sides, but never on the threshold. You are never to walk over the blood.

Now, once the blood had been transferred from the basin to the place where they lived, they were safe on one condition: What was that? They had to stay inside the house. You see, this is very important. The blood only protects the obedient. This is another question that has been asked about... we’ll probably come to it. But, you are safe while you obey.

I think I need to show you. I’m sorry you’re going to need so many fingers. 1Peter 1:2. If you can get there without surrendering all the other pages where you are. This is the way I like to teach the Bible. I’d love to spend hours without any time limits, just going on. Because when you get in, then it gets exciting. And then it takes you quite awhile to get in. Anyhow, let’s go on.

This is Peter’s greeting “To the pilgrims of the Dispersion” (Greek word, diaspora). It is specifically addressed to the Jews outside the land of Israel, which is still the normal Jewish way of describing them today, the diaspora.

. . . in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia,

[the] elect [or chosen] according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, [I prefer to say] in [pre-]sanctification of the Spirit, for [but I prefer the old translation, “unto”] obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ....

Notice, obedience comes before sprinkling. The blood is not sprinkled on the disobedient. The blood does not protect those who go out of the house. It only protects those who are behind it or covered by it.

All right. Now, the burning question is, for Israel: How do we get the blood, which is shed, the sacrifice is complete—to the place where we live? Because as long as we just look at the blood in the basin, it’s not going to do us any good. It’s available, but it does nothing. So we have to take this simple little plant called hyssop, dip it in the blood, and strike it on the outside of our house over the door. Then we’re protected.

Now you can let Exodus go, you can let... I think... better keep your finger in Revelation (it depends slightly on the time element), and let’s look at 1Corinthians 5:7. Paul is comparing the... or applying the teaching of the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread to Christians. He says it has an application. And he says in verse 7 of 1Corinthians 5:

Therefore purge out the old leaven...

That’s the Feast of Unleavened Bread. And you know that every Jewish family had to eliminate everything that was leavened from their house for seven days. They still do it today, some of them. What they will do is if they have anything that they particularly appreciate, they’ll find some Gentile neighbor and sell it to them at an agreed price and say, “I’ll buy it back in seven days’ time. I’m not sure God approves that, but... Now, the really orthodox will really do it and they’ll have little parties, little bonfires somewhere in the street, to burn all the leaven that they’ve taken from their homes. All right. Now let’s go on, because I don’t want to get involved in that.

Therefore purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, since you truly are unleavened. [And then we go to the next verse and then we’ll go back:]

Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness [that’s the old leaven, is malice and wickedness], but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

That’s the spiritual application. Now go back to the end of verse 7, which says:

For indeed Christ [or the Messiah], our Passover, was sacrificed for us.

So there’s a very clear application of the Passover to the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross.

Now, to give the application, we can say, the Passover Lamb was killed nineteen centuries ago. And (to use an application) the blood is in the basin. His blood has been shed. But, the blood in the basin doesn’t protect us. So we’ve got to transfer the blood from the basin to where we live.

Now under the Old Covenant, we used hyssop, but that’s not what we use under the New. What do we use under the new? The answer is: our testimony. It’s our personal testimony that takes the blood out of the basin and applies it to our lives, to our situation, to our family, to where we live.

So, going back to Revelation 12:11: “We overcome Satan when we use the hyssop.” What’s the hyssop? Our personal testimony. “We overcome Satan when testify personally to what the Word says the blood does for us.” That’s taking the blood from the basin and sprinkling it upon ourselves, upon our lives, upon any situation where it’s legitimate to apply it.

Now, I’m going to go on to tell you what the blood does, according to the Word of God. Because unless you know what the Word teaches about the blood, you can’t do it. You understand? You have to be familiar with the Word. But, since we’re rather near the end of our time, it’s sometimes a little awkward to divide exactly at the end of 55 minutes. I hope you appreciate that. Incidentally, yesterday I really goofed because there was two more things I could have said about the marriage covenant that I didn’t say and they needed to be said. In fact, I’ll finish this and then I’ll add a P.S. to this. That will give me just the right amount of time. Because I don’t want to start now considering what the blood does according to the Word, I want to give it a complete session.

First of all, let’s do this personally. Let’s appropriate this. And of all the truths that I’ve learned in the Bible, if I had to choose one that’s the most valuable and the most powerful, this would be it. You see, we didn’t really deal with the full significance of the statement that Jesus “poured out His soul unto death.” In the blood of Jesus there was the life of God. God’s own life. The life of the One who created the whole universe. Now His life is infinitely more powerful than anything He created. There is no way the human mind can ever measure the power that was released in the blood of Jesus.

I said preaching somewhere... it was in Africa, actually, in Zambia. I said, “There’s more power in one drop of the blood of Jesus than there is in all the kingdom of Satan.” And my brother Mahesh, who was with me, it somehow ignited something in his spirit. He went on from Zambia to Zaire for a week to preach in the capital in Kinshasa and God moved in such a way that the crowds grew in one week from 50,000 to 350,000 people in that city. And many miracles took place, including a young boy who was raised from the dead. He’d been in hospital several hours when he came back to life. But Mahesh said to me afterwards, “The thing that gave me the faith was that one statement: ‘There’s more power in one drop of the blood of Jesus than there is in the whole kingdom of Satan.’”

You see, unfortunately, it’s become somewhat unfashionable, in a way, to downplay the blood of Jesus. Even people who theoretically believe in it. I think in a sense Christians are bowing to academic prejudices. If you want to be considered knowledgeable, then you don’t talk too much about the blood of Jesus because that’s kind of regarded as primitive. While Pentecostals talk about it, it’s there in the Bible.

I heard a preacher say once, “All that’s accomplished for us by the blood of Jesus was negative.” I totally disagree. Because the most positive thing in the universe is the life of God, and that life is released, how? In the blood of Jesus. You see, if we can learn how to appropriate what’s in the blood of Jesus, there’s nothing we will ever need that isn’t in it. Because it’s the life of God.

Now how do we appropriate it? We overcome Satan when we testify personally to what the Word says the blood does for us. It’s got to be personal. I’d like you to say those phrases after me—not with me, but after me. If you believe it. If you don’t believe it, don’t say it. We overcome Satan... when we testify personally... to what the Word says... the blood does... for us. Let’s do it once more. I think you ought to stick after me and the third time you can do it with me. Are you ready? We overcome Satan... when we testify personally... to what the Word says... the blood does... for us. Now let’s all say it together. We overcome Satan when we testify personally to what the Word says the blood does for us. Praise the Lord!

Now I’ve got about two minutes. I just want to add a P.S. to yesterday’s message.

I have to admit, I either ran out of faith or energy, I don’t know which. But with regard to the statement that marriage is a covenant on the part of husband and wife, I just want to say two things: First of all, what is the evidence in your mate that you’ve succeeded? Because your mate’s success has become your success. And I would say the primary answer is security. If your mate is successful it’ll give you security. And so I think we can measure ourselves to a certain extent, our success in marriage, by finding out whether our mate is secure. A husband with a wife who doesn’t honor him, doesn’t uphold him, doesn’t pray for him—it’s very hard for him to be secure. A wife with a husband who doesn’t appreciate her, honor her, praise her, tell her what a wonderful job she’s doing—it’s very hard for such a person to be secure.

The other thing I want to say is there are many good books today, some by my close personal friend, Larry Christensen, about how husbands and wives should live, and so on. Those are wonderful, but you see, you need the grace to do what the book says. And I believe the grace is released by the sacrifice. When you view marriage as a sacrifice, and enter into it that way, that releases the grace that you need to do the things that the book says.

I hope that completes what I should have said yesterday.