The Power of the Blood of Jesus
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Introduction
Introduction
Song:
Would you be free from the burden of sin?
There's pow'r in the blood, pow'r in the blood;
Would you o'er evil a victory win?
There's wonderful pow'r in the blood.
There is pow'r, pow'r, wonder-working pow'r
In the blood of the Lamb;
There is pow'r, pow'r, wonder-working pow'r
In the precious blood of the Lamb.
I want to speak to us today on
The Power of the Blood of Jesus.
The Power of the Blood of Jesus.
One of the central themes of God’s Word is the blood of Jesus.
For a new visitor, listening to talk about blood may seem very strange, weird, downright scary.
“Am I in a vampire cult?”
Why is the topic of the blood of Jesus so important to the church?
Good Friday and Resurrection Sunday are approaching - GF is the day Jesus died on the cross and shed His blood.
For one, the blood of Jesus is one of our weapons in spiritual warfare.
Lay some groundwork
Blood is essential to life.
MVA, trauma, laceration. Hypovolemic shock.
Millennia before modern science, Moses wrote
11 For the life of the flesh is in the blood...”
14 For the life of every creature is its blood: its blood is its life.
The life-carrying blood of man was so highly esteemed by God that He gave two commands early in Scripture.
Turn to Gen 9. This is after the flood.
God is establishing a covenant with Noah. He will not flood the earth again.
Genesis 9:3–6 “3 Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. And as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything.
First command:
4 But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood.
Personal story - I ate black pudding as a child. We made it to sell at the market.
I don’t do this as a believer.
This is not only an OT command. Strangely, it is reinforced for the NT church.
Other OT laws were being pushed upon the followers of Christ, like circumcision.
They held a council and passed a resolution.
Acts 15:20 “.. write to them to abstain from the things polluted by idols, and from sexual immorality, and from what has been strangled, and from blood.”
First command: Do not eat food with blood.
Second command: 5 And for your lifeblood I will require a reckoning: from every beast I will require it and from man. From his fellow man I will require a reckoning for the life of man.
6 “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image.
You will recall when Cain killed his brother Abel, what did God say?
Genesis 4:10 “10 And the Lord said, “What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood is crying to me from the ground.”
Exodus 20:13 “13 “You shall not murder.”
The life of a human being is precious to God - no abortion, no murder, no euthanasia.
This is not to be applied to capital punishment.
So the blood is a central theme. God values it. We are not to eat flesh with the blood in it, drink blood, as the Masai’s do, or murder.
There is power in the blood.
The blood protects from judgement.
The blood protects from judgement.
Israel were in Egypt for 430 years. The latter part of their time was one of bondage and oppression.
God sent Moses to deliver them but pharaoh was stubborn. Then came the plagues but he won’t budge
Finally, God says I have one judgement for Egypt.
He will take the lives of all the firstborn of Egypt because Pharaoh was holding God’s firstborn, Israel, in bondage.
The Israelites were to slay a male lamb, one year old, without defect, take the blood and apply to their doorposts. They were to remain inside the house that night because God was passing through to judge Egypt.
12 For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the Lord.
13 The blood shall be a sign for you, on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you to destroy you, when I strike the land of Egypt.
You know the story. That same night God struck down all the firstborn of Egypt, mankind and animals.
Exodus 12:30 “30 And Pharaoh rose up in the night, he and all his servants and all the Egyptians. And there was a great cry in Egypt, for there was not a house where someone was not dead.”
Only then did the hardhearted Pharaoh realize he cannot fight against the One True and Living God.
He who said Exodus 5:2 “Who is the Lord, that I should obey his voice and let Israel go? I do not know the Lord, and moreover, I will not let Israel go.”” was now ready to release them all unconditionally.
He couldn’t fight against this God!
We’ll see this again. The God is Israel lives!
To remember this great deliverance, Israel was to commemorate the Passover every year.
The blood protects us from the judgment of God.
The blood brings forgiveness,
The blood brings forgiveness,
Another Jewish festival is Yom Kippur.
If someone sinned they were to offer a sin offering or guilt offering, they were to bring a lamb, without blemish, lay his hand on it, and kill it. The priest will pour the blood on the altar.
Then once a year, on the tenth day of Tishri, Yom Kippur is observed.
You will find details in Lev 16.
In the tabernacle, the Holy of Holies was inaccessible to anyone, even the priest and high priest.
The Holy God of Israel was dwelling in their midst.
The HP had to offer a sacrifice for himself and one for the people for the sins of the people.
But the question is: Can an animal sacrifice be adequate to satisfy what justice demands? Is it of equal value?
It’s like taking a loan and offering a collateral.
Or going to a pawn shop and offering up your diamond ring. You won’t get more for it.
Just in case you are contemplating the answer, God has helped us out.
4 For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.
So then why did God allow this for centuries?
Because the Passover Lamb, The Day of Atonement, the sin and guilt offerings were all pointing to the perfect sacrifice to come.
So now when Jesus came on the scene, John the Baptist, the forerunner declares John 1:29 “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!”
Paul the Apostle declares boldly:
For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed.
He is the perfect, unblemished sacrifice.
and so we read
7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace,
We have redemption. We have been redeemed, bought back
You can possibly redeem that wedding ring from the pawn shop, once you pay the price.
There was a price to be paid to satisfy the wrath of God because of man’s rebellion, sin, wickedness.
That’s what Jesus did on Calvary.
The blood cleanses us from sin.
The blood cleanses us from sin.
7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.
What can wash away my sin, nothing but the blood of Jesus.
So many in the world are making a colossal error - they presume that their works of righteousness will atone for their sins.
They prefer to stand in their self-sufficiency, their pride, their tradition and trust religion and works to make them right with God when God has provided a sacrifice.
He gave his own Son.
The blood cleanses - better than any detergent, bleach.
18 “Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool.
I know not why the Sovereign King would leave His throne on high
And dwell in this barren land for mortals such as I
He left His home and paradise O Why? I'll never know
But His precious blood has made me pure
Than the virgin snow
Here am I, so unworthy of the blood
Unworthy of the blood
That set me free
Here am I, so unworthy of the blood
Yet it flowed for me
There is a fountain filled with blood Drawn from Immanuel’s veins;
And sinners, plunged beneath that flood, Lose all their guilty stains:
Some sinners may ask, can He forgive me for murder, walking away from my marriage, stealing, drugs? Oh yes He can.
Some Christians may ask, can God forgive me for my repeated failures, sins, mistakes? Yes He can.
And that cleansing goes deeper
The blood purifies our conscience.
The blood purifies our conscience.
Now sometimes, we know God has forgiven us.
12 as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us.
19 He will again have compassion on us; he will tread our iniquities underfoot. You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea.
Yet the sting of our past remains.
It comes back to haunt you. It terrorizes you.
Satan reminds you of your past
I like what one singer said. Whenever he reminds you of your past, you remind him of his future.
You don’t feel adequate, whole, clean, good enough.
The cleansing power of the blood goes deeper.
13 For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh,
14 how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.
This is why Paul said
1 There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
The blood brings us near to God.
The blood brings us near to God.
13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.
There is an interesting event recorded by Matthew that is not mentioned in the other gospels.
Matthew 27:45–46 “45 Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour. 46 And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?””
Matthew 27:50 “50 And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and yielded up his spirit.”
51 And behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom.
Remember that curtain separated the HOH from the rest of the tabernacle and temple - no one had access, only the HP, only once a year, only with a blood sacrifice.
When Jesus died, He opened up the way for you and me to access the throne of God directly
You don’t need the Pope to go to God for you
You don’t need the pastor to go to God for you
Every child of God can call upon the name of the Name of the Lord!
How do we come? with shyness, cowering in fear, with doubt, with uncertainty, with hesitancy?
14 Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession.
16 Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
There’s one more thing
The blood defeats the devil.
The blood defeats the devil.
Turn to Rev. 12. Here we see a war in the heavenlies.
Revelation 12:7–10 “7 Now war arose in heaven, Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon. And the dragon and his angels fought back, 8 but he was defeated, and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. 9 And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.
I am flabbergasted with how vulnerable we are, how gullible we are to Satan’s deception.
10 And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, “Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God.
11 And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death.
Satan the deceiver, the accuser of our brothers. He is conquered by the blood of the Lamb
If he wants to accuse us, there is no sin that we have committed, that is not under the blood.
In the spiritual realm, you and I are covered over by the blood of Jesus.
We are under the blood.
Conclusion
Conclusion
When it comes to your relationship with God, you are not to walk in shame, doubt, uncertainty, unbelief.
You are forgiven. Your are clean. You are free. You have access.
Lift up your heart. Lift up your head.
Come boldly before throne of grace
Lift your your hands to heaven and worship the Savior.
Rejoice in His salvation and victory.
Thank you Jesus for the blood!
24 The Lord bless you and keep you;
25 the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you;
26 the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.
