The Life-Giver

I want to speak to you tonight about The Life-Giver, the one who gives life. I’m going to turn to John’s Gospel chapter 10 and verse 10, which clearly depicts two opposite persons. One is the Life-Taker and the other is the Life-Giver, and all of us need to be able to identify both, to know how to get the presence of the Life-Taker out of our lives and to receive the presence and power of the Life-Giver into our lives. These are words that Jesus spoke, He says,

“The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.”

So there are the two persons—the thief who only comes to steal, to kill and to destroy and Jesus who comes to give life and to give it more abundantly. Who is the thief? I suppose most of us have no doubt about his identity. He’s a person about whom Jesus had a good deal to say, a very real person, not a religious fiction, not a religious tradition, but a real spiritual being, an intensely evil being, the devil, Satan. He is the Life-Taker.

The American Evangelist Oral Roberts used to say and I think it’s well worth keeping on saying it, ‘There is no goodness in the devil, and there is no badness in God. God is altogether good, and the devil is altogether bad.’ And we need to know that and we need to relate to those facts.

Jesus here calls the devil a thief. Elsewhere He calls him a liar and a murderer. He has nothing good whatever to say about him. Continually in various ways, He’s warning us against allowing the devil to invade our lives and do his work in us. He says the devil only has three motives in coming into our lives—to steal, to kill and to destroy. I don’t believe those things mean exactly the same. I think each has a specific meaning. He comes to steal, that is to take away that which is ours from God, to take away every good thing that God wants us to have. What are those good things? Our innocence, our integrity, our peace of mind, our health, the happiness of our homes and our families, when the devil comes he comes with the intention of stealing all those. And there are some of you here tonight from whom he has stolen much. There are some of you here tonight, you have no peace of mind, you have no sense of personal identity, you’re troubled and insecure. Maybe you’ve been through the agonies of some family breakup. Perhaps you didn’t know whom to blame. I’m telling you tonight the one responsible is the devil, the thief.

He not only comes to steal, he comes to kill. He’s a murderer. He comes to destroy us physically. Many, many people die before their God-appointed time, murdered by the devil. We’ve heard of the problem of alcohol in this area. Alcohol is one of the devil’s ways of killing people before their time. An alcoholic very rarely will live out his full life span. Another way that the devil has of killing people is tobacco, nicotine. It’s a well established medical fact that people who smoke will live less long than people who don’t smoke, and they’re extremely prone to major killing diseases—heart attack, lung cancer, and others.

I was in a ward once in World War II. I was sick but not with any particular problems I’ve mentioned, but it was a ward where there were a number of cancer patients with cancer of the throat and cancer of the tongue. And when I saw their condition, it gave me a very strong determination to go a different way, not to go that way. But those are just two examples of many of the different ways in which the devil murders men and women. You need to know you’re dealing with a murderer. He murders people psychologically by the torment of insanity, fear, resentment, bitterness, unforgiveness. All those are killers. People who give way to them almost inevitably will not live out their full life span. One of the great requirements for health is a sense of security and peace of mind. And when you lose that you’re on your way to losing your health even if you haven’t already lost it.

These are simple facts. They’re not religious facts, they’re medical facts, they’re scientific facts, they’re facts of experience, but unless we listen to the warning of Jesus we won’t understand the identity of the person behind these things. Jesus says he not only comes to steal and to kill but also to destroy. And I believe personally, in the light of the use of that word in the New Testament, that goes beyond the present life span. The Bible says that God has authority to destroy both soul and body in a place called Gehenna, a place of torment, a place of fire, a place of unending agony, and that’s the ultimate purpose of

Satan for every person into whose life he comes. It’s not merely to destroy you physically and emotionally and financially in this life, it’s not merely to bring you to an untimely grave, but it is to see that you are destroyed forever, banished from the presence of God in a place about which Jesus spoke more than any other person in the Bible. He said, ‘Don’t fear those who can only kill the body and have no more to do, but fear him who after he has killed has authority to destroy soul and body in Gehenna.’

Now the devil comes as a thief. Normally speaking a thief doesn’t announce who he is or why he’s come. He doesn’t come in broad daylight, knock at your front door and when you answer the door and say, ‘Why have you come?’ he doesn’t answer, ‘Well, I’m a thief. I’ve come to take everything you have.’ He wouldn’t have much success that way. And the devil is like that. He doesn’t tell you who he is, he doesn’t tell you why he’s come. A thief usually comes at night, in the darkness. You’re not even aware that he’s come. Many times you wake up in the morning and you find your most precious treasures have gone and you slept through it all. That happens to many. They don’t even realize that the devil has taking these things from them until they’re gone. The thief came, went, they never say him, they never knew who he was.

Another way that thieves operate is by what we call confidence tricksters. They come to you and they assure you that, let’s say, they’ve discovered a new gold mine in County Antrim. Nobody knows about it yet. It’s going to produce altogether unheard of quantities of gold. And you have this opportunity to purchase shares before their real value is known. And if you purchase shares now for ten pounds a share, in a few months they’ll be work a thousand pounds each. And so of course you grab the opportunity to invest in this gold mine, but when you’ve paid your money and receive the share certificates, you discover they’re not even worth the paper they’re printed on. But the thief has gone with your money. The devil operates like that. He comes into your life and says he’s going to give you a wonderful time. You’re really going to enjoy yourself. You’re going to have plenty of pleasure, plenty of money, plenty of leisure, but when you’ve bought his deception it isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on.

Then there’s another way that thieves come. They come as robbers, armed, men of violence, they burst in, they confront you with a revolver, and they say, ‘Where’s your money? Where are your jewels?

If you don’t show them to us we’ll shoot you.’ They do it by fear, by pressure. The devil operates that way in many, many lives. I’ve heard so many people say, ‘I just couldn’t take the pressure. It was too much for me. My mind snapped. I just had to give in. I couldn’t hold out.’ Mental pressure, financial pressure, family pressure, but behind those pressures there is the enemy. No matter what way he comes, and there are many other ways he could come, bear in mind, write it on the table of your heart, he only has three motives—to steal, to kill and to destroy. And if you make him welcome you are extremely foolish, because that’s what’s he’s going to do. And after tonight there’s no one here who can say, ‘I didn’t know. I wasn’t warned.’ I’m warning you now. Jesus warned us in the New Testament, but I’m presenting His warning to you now. The thief only comes to steal, to kill to destroy, and he’s gone a long way in the lives of some of you.

But the good news is, Jesus came for the opposite purpose. He came not to take away, but to give. To give life, life more abundantly, spiritual life, physical life, a life that’s exciting and rich. I’d like to testify briefly to my own experience.

I was saved in World War II in the British Army in 1941. By profession I was a professional philosopher. I held a Fellowship in Philosophy in King’s College in the University of Cambridge. When the war ended the Provost of King’s wrote to me and made the most attractive offer if I would return to King’s. He promised me that in a few years I would be Tutor of the college and that I had a tremendous academic future in front of me. But in the meanwhile the Lord had called me to serve Him in Jerusalem. And I renounced my entire academic career. I gave it up and I entered into a life where my income was minimal and where I was confronted by many difficulties and pressures. My first wife and I and our adopted family went through the tremendous turmoil and strife in the City of Jerusalem that marked the birth of the State of Israel. I want to tell you, dear people, in Northern Ireland you have not experienced anything like that, like what we experienced in Jerusalem. Twice we had to leave our home in the middle of the night to save our lives. We never knew who would shoot at us from where next.

That’s what I accepted in exchange for a position at Cambridge University. But if I had accepted the position at Cambridge University, five years ago I would have had to retire, I would be sitting in some little house somewhere with a moderate income and aging, burned out, and here I am five years past retirement age, strong, active, and I’ve had one of the most interesting, exciting and challenging lives that you could imagine.

My first wife went to be with the Lord in 1975. When I married Ruth in 1978 I said, ‘I think I can promise you one thing. Our life will not be dull.’ And I have kept that promise. She will not dispute that. Our life has not been easy, but it has been rich, it has been exciting, and I’ve had the inestimable privilege of giving myself to things of eternal value. Not just things that have a certain amount of significance for a short period of time, but I’ve invested in human lives that will live for eternity. I’ve invested in the truth of God which lives for eternity, which has the power to transform the lives of men and women to call them out of their darkness into the glorious light of Jesus Christ.

When I made that decision it seemed to be a sacrifice, but I’ll tell you, if I had to make it again I’d make the same decision. I’ve met many, many people who were called to serve the Lord and who responded to His call. And I’ve talked with them years later. I’ve never met one who was dissatisfied. On the other hand I have occasionally met people who heard the Lord’s call but refused and thought the sacrifice was too great. And mostly they are somewhat bitter, discontented, frustrated people.

Now I felt the Lord showed me tonight that I was to give you a brief insight into how Jesus gives us life, and what it cost Him to give us life. This is probably a kind of message that you may never have heard and it centers in the blood of Jesus. In my opinion, far too little is preached in the contemporary church about the blood of Jesus. So tonight I’m going to dwell on that theme. There’s always something a little bit disgusting about blood. I was a medical orderly in World War II so I saw plenty of blood. But I remember as a young boy, when I was about six or seven or eight if I saw blood I vomited. It had a real impact on me emotionally. I’ve grown past that, but I think there’s something about blood that always kind of, it’s too serious in a way. It’s life and death. We’d almost rather not face the facts about blood.

Tonight I’m going to ask you to face those facts and I believe it you’ll follow me in this teaching, it will give you an altogether new insight into the life that’s available through Jesus. I’m going to give you a lot of Scripture references. For the most part I’m not going to turn to them, just to save time and keep my talk continuous. In the Old Testament in the book of Leviticus in the ordinances for the Mosaic Aaronic Priesthood, the Lord said in chapter 17 verse 11,

“For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your soul; for it is in the blood that makes atonement for the soul.”

That’s a tremendous prophetic statement which was fulfilled fourteen centuries later in Jesus. But the word that translated life is the Hebrew word for soul. In Hebrew it’s nephesh. So it’s not just the life, but it’s the soul of a human being that is in the blood, and we all know when the blood ceases to circulate and coagulate, the life has gone. So in a certain sense your life depends on your blood. Your life is in your blood. In the previous chapter of Leviticus, chapter 16 in the ordinances for the Day of Atonement, Moses told Aaron, his brother the High Priest, how he could only go once every year into the most Holy place in the Tabernacle, the immediate presence of God, and he had to go with a censor full of coals of fire with fragrance incense on them which sent up a cloud of fragrant smoke. He had to have that in one hand the blood of the sin offering that had been slain I front of the Tabernacle. And if he did not have both the censor full of the fragrant incense and the blood of the sacrificial animal, he would have died. There was no access to the presence of God without those two things.

Now the censor with its fragrance incense is a beautiful type of worship. We never come into the presence, the immediate presence of God without worship. Worship is the only way into the presence of God. But we never come without blood which speaks of atonement for our sins. These pictures in the Old Testament were prophetic types, they were previews of what would be actually be fulfilled in the New Testament. And when the priest entered the holy place with the incense and with the blood, he had to sprinkle the blood seven times on the mercy seat, which was a picture of the atonement, and seven times in front of the mercy seat. And the Bible was absolutely specific—not six times, not eight times, but seven times.

And then in Isaiah chapter 53 and verse 12, which is a picture, a prophetic picture of the suffering of Jesus, it’s the clearest picture in the Old Testament of the suffering of Jesus for our sins. The 12th verse,

the final verse, it says,

“The Lord will divide Him a portion with the great,
And He will divide the spoil with the strong,
Because He has poured out His soul unto death.”

Now it’s important that you understand that the word in Isaiah 53:12 is the same as the word in Leviticus 17:11. The soul of all flesh, every human being is in the blood, and when Jesus made atonement for our sins, He poured out His soul how? In His blood. That’s why the blood is the most precious in the universe, because in that blood is the soul life of God, the Creator.

I have said once or twice there is more power in one drop of the blood of Jesus than in all the kingdom of Satan put together. Because in the life blood of Jesus is the life of God the Creator, a life that’s greater than the entire universe and all the creatures He ever created. And that life is released only through the blood of Jesus. That’s how He became the Life-Giver when He shed His blood. Never turn away from the blood of Jesus. I’ve learned with tremendous regret that in the Methodist church in some sections, they’ve gone through the hymnbooks and removed every reference to the blood of Jesus. Fools! There’s no other atonement for sin. There’s no other source of life. One of our big problems, brothers and sisters, is we don’t dwell enough on the blood.

I have discovered in dealing with demon powers, and I’ve dealt with them for years, they’re not afraid of theology, they’re not afraid of denominations, they don’t care what church you belong to, but you talk to them about the cross and the blood of Jesus and they tremble, they literally tremble. Thank God.

What I want to share with you tonight is that Jesus, very accurately fulfilled the picture in Leviticus 16 of the priest sprinkling the blood seven times, and I want to take you through the last few hours of the life of Jesus on His way to the cross, and I want to point out to you very specifically that He sprinkled His blood seven times. So accurate is the Bible. I’ll give you the references, but we won’t turn there. In Luke 22 verse 44, as He was in the Garden of Gethsemane agonizing to receive the cup which the Father had given Him, the cup for the propitiation of our sins, it says He became so earnest and agonized so much in prayer that His sweat was like great drops of blood falling down to the ground, and He began at that point to release His blood in sweat. How many of us can imagine an agony that causes us to sweat blood? And then in Matthew 26 verses 63 through 67, He was arraigned by the High Priest and the High Priest asked Him, ‘Are you the Son of God?’ and He said, ‘Yes, and in due course you’ll see the Son of Many coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.’ And they called that blasphemy, condemned Him to be worthy of death, and began to strike Him on the cheeks with their fists and with rods, and so He sprinkled His blood the second time.

And then we have a prophetic preview in Isaiah chapter 50 verses 5 and 6, which tells us something that isn’t actually specifically in the New Testament. Isaiah speaking in the Spirit of Christ testifying of the sufferings of Christ and the glory that would follow says, ‘I gave my back to the smiters and my cheeks to those who plucked out the hair.’ So we know that those violent men caught hold of the beard of Jesus and literally pulled out the hair by the roots, and He sprinkled His blood the third time.

And then Pilate, having surrendered Jesus to the will of the High Priest and the crowd, before he sent Him to be crucified, had Him scourged with the Roman scourge which was a whip with a number of different lashes, and the lashes were studded with pieces of bone or metal, so that every time the lash fell on the back of a man it tore away the flesh. Prophetically it says in Psalm 129 verse 3, ‘The plowers plowed along my back. They made long their furrows.’ And Isaiah 53 verse 4 says, ‘With His lashes we are healed.’ It’s a marvelous thought that as the lash fell on the back of Jesus, the sicknesses and the pains of all humanity were laid upon Him, and He shed His blood profusely from His back the fourth time.

Then He was taken to Herod’s court and Herod’s soldiers mocked Him, stripped His clothes from Him, put a purple robe on Him and plaited a crown of thorns and put it on His head and then they beat Him on the head with a reed. If you ever seen those thorns they’re always carried by Christians the week before Easter. There’s a celebration every year in Jerusalem where they go up to the mountains and take the thorns. They’re the most sharp thorns you can picture. And as the thorns were placed on His head and they beat Him on His head, those sharp thorns went right down into His scalp and released the blood for the fifth time.

The sixth time the blood was released when He was crucified, and His hands and His feet were pierced with rough, jagged nails. And then He died, but there was still one more sprinkling of the blood. After He was dead the soldiers came to make sure He was dead and they were going to break His legs to put an end to His life, but they found Him already dead so they didn’t break His legs. But one soldier reached up with a spear and thrust it into His side in the area of the heart, and it says immediately there came out blood and water. That was the seventh sprinkling of the blood of Jesus. And I personally believe, partly on medical grounds and partly on spiritual grounds, that all the blood in His body was released. Every drop of blood, His life blood was released. Why? That we might have life, the life of all flesh is in the blood.

Then I want to point out to you that in our lives when we believe in Jesus, when we receive Him as Savior and confess Him as Lord and yield our lives to Him, there’s a seven-fold working of the blood in our lives. You see the blood was sprinkled twice seven times. Once on the mercy seat and once before the mercy seat. And I want to just give you the seven ways that the blood works on our behalf in our lives. First of all in Ephesians 1:7 it says,

“In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace.
And in 1 Peter chapter 1 and verses 18 and 19 it says,
for as much as you were not redeemed with corruptible things, such as silver or gold, from your vain conduct received by tradition from you fathers,
But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot. Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in theses last times for us.”

So the blood of Jesus was the redemptive price. To redeem means to buy back, to ransom. We were in the devil’s grip, we were his legitimate prey, but Jesus bought us back at the price of His blood, the only price that could redeem a fallen human race.

“In Romans 7 and verse 14, Paul says,
…I am carnal, sold under sin.”

That’s a metaphor that you wouldn’t understand if you weren’t familiar with the civilization of that day. But much of the Roman and Greek civilization was based on slavery. There was a tremendous substratum of slaves and it was common for people to be sold as slaves in a slave market. And in the slave market there was a kind of stand on which they placed the person who was up for sale, and out over his head there was stretched a spear which was the token that he was being sold as a slave. And it was, the Latin phrase was To Sell a Person Under the Spear, to sell him as a slave. So when Paul says, I am carnal, sold under sin, what he’s saying is, ‘My sin is the spear over my head that exposes me for sale in Satan’s slave market.’ So that’s where every one of us was, waiting to be sold as slaves. And you know it’s a remarkable thing when you think about a slave __________ his profession or his employment. One woman will be sold as a slave and become a cook. Another will become a prostitute. It’s not her choice, it’s the choice of the slave owner. One man can be sold as a slave, become an agricultural worker. Another can be employed in some vile practice. He has no choice. That’s why, brothers, you and I, we’re respectable slaves. Let’s not look down on the less respectable. It wasn’t our choice; it was the slave master’s choice. Don’t you despise the prostitute, the alcoholic. They were sold as slaves and they had no choice. It was the slave master who decided what their life would be.

But thank God, when we were there exposed for slavery, and you can’t imagine the shame of being exposed to slavery because your body is almost naked, and if you’re a woman particularly, the people who are going to buy you come and examine your skin and your flesh to see if you’ll provide them with the kind of satisfaction that they’re looking for. When we were thus exposed for slavery, Jesus walked into the slave market and He said, ‘I’ll buy that man. I’ll buy that woman. What’s the price? My blood.’ That’s what it means to be redeemed by the blood of Jesus. If you can’t get excited about that, brothers and sisters, you’ve never understood what happened.

I remember in the Anglican Church as a boy growing up, I heard all these beautiful statements, creeds, and prayers which I still love today. We understood that we were lost sinners, condemned to hell and God had sent His Son to die in our place that we might have eternal life. That was very clearly stated, but when I looked at the people as a boy growing up—you know the critical early teen years—I thought to myself, ‘They don’t believe what they say. They don’t get excited.’ I thought to myself you know, I can picture this dignified lady walking out of the church and she drops her beautiful lace handkerchief, and I run after her and pick the handkerchief up and say, ‘Madam, you dropped your handkerchief.’ She gets much more excited about getting the handkerchief back than she did about anything she said in church. You understand why? It’s never been made real for most people. The only who can make real to us the reality of redemption is the Holy Spirit. Some of you may laugh at the people who jump and dance on the platform. Brother, if you knew what God had done for you, you couldn’t stop jumping and dancing.

I want to tell you the Holy Spirit gives us the logical reaction. It’s absurd to believe that you were a lost soul going to a lost eternity. God for now reason but love gave His perfect spotless Son to die in your place, and you say ‘I believe in God the Father…’ You don’t believe in anything. If you did you’d be different. What you’ve got, brothers and sisters, in that condition is religion. It’s not faith. If you had faith it would change you.

“Secondly, the second effect of the blood of Jesus. Romans 5:9,
Being justified by His blood we have peace with God.”

What a beautiful statement—justified. Do you know what it is to be justified? Some of you’ve heard me say this, but this is the beautiful explanation. You can only give it in English. To be justified is to be just as if I’d never sinned, because it’s to be made righteous with God’s righteousness. No guilt, no dark shadows from the past, no torments, spotless, unsullied righteousness provided how? By the blood of Jesus. We are justified by His blood. Just as if we had never sinned.

“The third effect of the blood of Jesus is stated in Hebrews 13:12,”

sanctified have been set apart to God. They don’t belong to this world. They’re not in the kingdom of Satan. Between them and Satan there is the blood of Jesus which he cannot pass. They’re sanctified, set apart, they’re also made holy. The real meaning of sanctify is to be made holy. Nothing can make us holy, brothers and sisters. Not all our good works, not all our efforts, not all our prayers, nothing can do it but the blood of Jesus. When you’ve been sanctified by the blood then you can lead a life that’s holy, but you can’t make yourself holy by your own efforts.

“The fourth effect of the blood of Jesus is that we are continually kept clean by it. 1 John 1:7,
If we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.
But in that verse in the Greek language, every verb is in the continuing present.
If we continually walk in the light, we continually have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus continually cleanses us from sin.”

In a work that is gross and sinful and defiled, we can be kept absolutely clean by the blood of Jesus. But the blood only cleanses in the light—if we walk in the light, the blood cleanses. If we get out of the light we are no longer kept clean by the blood. Walking in the light is walking in obedience to the word of God, and in fellowship with our fellow believers. See, that’s why it’s so dangerous to get out of fellowship, because if you get out of fellowship you’re out of the light, and if you’re out of the light you’re no longer being cleansed by the blood of Jesus. You cannot afford to straggle off somewhere and get separated from the Body of Christ, because you’ll lose your claim to the cleansing for the blood.

I spent five years in East Africa and I learned a certain amount of the language they use there, Swahili, and there’s a chorus in Swahili, well it’s a translation of a chorus we have in English, I can’t even think of the English words. But it’s about the blood of Jesus and it says Damu ya Yesu, Damu is blood, ya Yesu is Jesus, husafisha kabisa and the prefix hu, means something that’s done continually and perfectly. It’s so vivid. It continually perfectly cleanses. Kabisa means totally. Damu ya Yesu, husafisha kabisa. I just love to say that in Swahili. I don’t know why. It became so real to me. It cleanses totally. It leave nothing unclean. We have no guilt, we have nothing to be ashamed of because of the blood. Then the fifth effect of the blood of Jesus, it gives us access into the immediate presence of God. Hebrews 10:19,

“Having then boldness, brethren, by the blood of Jesus to enter into the holiest.”

The High Priest in the old covenant could only go once every year. He had to take the sensor in one hand and the bowl of blood in the other. But we are invited, we’re urged. The epistle to the Hebrews says let us therefore enter in to the presence of God through the blood of Jesus. The blood of Jesus gives us immediate unqualified right of access to Almighty God. Never go apart from the blood. That doesn’t mean you’ve got to use a lot of religious language about the blood, but it means you need to recognize that if the blood had not been shed and sprinkled in heaven, you could have no right of access to God whatever. You must really appreciate the tremendous privilege of having immediate direct access to Almighty God into the place of His holiness that was purchased for us by the blood of Jesus.

The sixth effect of the blood of Jesus is one that many of you have probably never considered—it speaks on our behalf. The writer of Hebrews in the 12th chapter—maybe I should read that, it’s too good just to quote. Hebrews chapter 12 verses 22 and following. This is what’s been made possible for us through the death of Jesus.

“But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels,
To the general assembly and church of the first born…”

There’s an alternative translation which some of you may have which says, a festal concourse of angels in festal attire. You know, if you don’t get excited about that, you just don’t really believe it, that’s all. Fancy being there with all those angels—I’ve got one brother who believes me anyhow. [A man calls out!!!] I mean, if only the Holy Spirit this evening could make real to us, and only He can do it, there are all the angels but we go past the angels. We come closer to God than the angels because of the blood. It says the angels like to look into things which we have. They’re spectators. All right,

“…to the general assembly of the first born, who are registered in heaven,”

that’s the church, the firstborn, those who have been born again of the Holy Spirit. We have two residential addresses, one is in Craig Avon tonight, the other is the heavenly Mount Zion. You understand? Physically we’re located here. Spiritually we’re up there. It doesn’t say we will come, it says we have come who are registered in heaven. The most important thing, brothers and sisters, is to have your name on the church roll in heaven. You may have your name on a church roll on earth, but they may not know your name up in heaven. Who are you? Who are you? ‘I’m William Brown. I belong to such and such a Presbyterian church in such and such a city.’ Or it could be a Baptist church, or it could be many other churches. Sorry, but there’s no record of your name in the roll up here. A lot or people are on church rolls on earth, but don’t have their names registered up there. You have to be born again to have your name on that register. It’s the church of the first born. Those who’ve passed from death unto life, those who know their sins are forgiven. We haven’t come to the place I was looking for.

“to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect, [I believe that’s the saints of the Old Covenant.]
to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, [and the last item of the list] and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel.”

The blood that’s sprinkled in heaven speaks on our behalf. You see the blood of Abel was shed by force and fell to the ground and called out to God for vengeance. But the blood of Jesus He willingly gave, and it’s sprinkled in heaven, not on earth. And it calls out to God not for vengeance but for mercy. And even when we are silent and don’t know how to pray and feel condemned and unworthy and a long way from God, the blood is still speaking on our behalf in the presence of God.

And then finally, another passage I want to read which is the essence of what I’m trying to say to you tonight. In John the 6th chapter some words of Jesus, John 6:53 through 57.

“Then Jesus said to them, ‘Most assuredly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you.
‘Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.
‘For My flesh is food indeed, and My blood is drink indeed.
‘He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him.
‘As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who feeds on Me will live because of Me.’”

That’s the only source of life—it’s the blood of Jesus. Jesus said, ‘Unless you receive My blood, you have no life in you. But the life that’s in the blood is the life of God.’ It’s a divine life, it’s an eternal life, it’s an unconquerable life. It’s a life that was before the universe was created, it’s a life that will continue forever. I once heard a many say this and it struck me, ‘I believe I’m going to live as long as God, because I have the life of God in me.’ And that life comes only through the blood of Jesus.

Let me just read through what I’ve said, the outline, the seven ways in which the blood was shed. He sweat drops of blood in the Garden. In the High Priest’s courtyard he was struck on the face with the rods and fists. The hair of His beard was pulled out. The Roman scourge was laid on His back. A crown of thorns was pressed into His scalp. He was crucified with nails through hands and feet, and finally His side was opened in the last remnants of His blood poured out.

And then the seven effects of the blood of Jesus. Through the blood we are redeemed; we are justified, made righteous, just as if we’d never sinned; sanctified, made holy, set apart to God; continually kept clean in a defiled world; we have access into God’s immediate presence; the blood speaks on our behalf even when we don’t know how to pray; and then in the blood of Jesus there is divine eternal holy life. And Jesus says, ‘If you partake of the life that’s in my blood, it’s going to effect even your physical body. So that when the resurrection comes, your body will rise.’ Only those who have His blood will be resurrected. ‘I will raise him up at the last days.’

I’ve spoken to you about the Life-Taker and the Life-Giver—Satan the Life-Taker, Jesus the Life Giver. Some of you tonight are still captives of Satan, victims. He’s in your life to steal, to kill and to destroy. But tonight I’ve offered you an alternative, it is to come to Jesus and receive the life that’s in His blood, without money and without price. You cannot pay for it. If you, tonight, want to escape from the grip of Satan and come to Jesus and know the life and the peace that He gives, we would like to pray for you and minister to you.

Would you just bow your heads in prayer a moment, all of you. Now those of you who have never actually received eternal life in Jesus Christ, but you want that life, you desire it, will you just raise your hand wherever you are right now in this building. We can introduce you to Jesus here tonight if you will raise your hand as token that you desire to come to Jesus, receive the life that He has. Would your raise you hand wherever you may be in this auditorium. God bless you. I see that hand. Would you stand up, you that raised your hand, please, that we may help you. That’s right. Others here that want to receive life through the blood of Jesus tonight. You’ve never been born again, you know well that your name is not registered in heaven, but you want it to be. You want to come out of the darkness and into the light. Would you raise your hand wherever you may be. God bless you. Wherever you are. Those that have raised your hands, will you walk forward and come to the front. I want to introduce you to these pastors here who will help you. Don’t be ashamed. Just walk down and come to the front. Don’t be embarrassed. It’s the wisest thing you have ever done. There are others who should come too. Brothers, would you just be ready to receive them here.

There are others tonight here that need to come. Christians just be praying that those who need to be released tonight will find release. God bless you. Just keep coming. There should be quite a number here tonight. Praise God there’s another. Christians keep praying, God is moving. Others tonight, you want to escape from the captivity of Satan, you want to break his bonds and be free tonight. We invite you just to step out to the front and come forward. There’s a group of ministers here that will speak to you and pray with you and counsel with you personally. Don’t be ashamed, don’t be embarrassed. This is the wisest thing that you can ever do. You’ll never regret it. Praise God. Are there others here tonight? You know your name is not on that heavenly roll. You’ve never been born again of the Spirit of God, you’ve never passed from death to life, but tonight you desire to do that. You don’t need to raise a hand. Just stand up and walk down to the front, wherever are, whoever you may be.

All right. Brothers, if you could just take a little while to counsel with these people here. I want to do one more thing with the rest of you here tonight. Because I’ve taught on the blood I want to teach you a wonderful secret about how to make the blood effective in your life. If you’d turn in your Bible to Revelation chapter 12, Revelation chapter 12 verse 11.

“They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death.”

That speaks about people, men and women such as ourselves, who’ve had a tremendous conflict with Satan but they’ve won the conflict, they’ve defeated their enemy. And it tells us how they’ve won the conflict, and I want to share this with you. There is no money that you could pay that would worth what I’m going to tell you. It’s how to apply the blood. It says,

“They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, [that’s the Lamb of God, Jesus,] and by the word of their testimony.”

I’ll put this in simple language. I want to say it in a personal way. We overcome Satan when we testify personally to what the word of God says the blood of Jesus does for us. It’s the combination of three things—the blood, the word and our testimony. And it’s our testimony that makes it act in us.

Under the old covenant when Israel were slaves in Egypt, God provided deliverance for them through the blood of the Passover lamb. Many of you know that story. They had to kill the sacrificial lamb, catch it’s blood in a basin, and then transfer the blood from the basin to the house where they lived, and the thing that God gave them to do it with was a little herb called hyssop which grown very commonly in the Middle East. They had to pluck the herb, dip the herb in the blood in the basin, and then sprinkle it on the lintel and the two side posts of their door. And the Lord said, ‘When I see the blood, the destroying angel will not enter in. But if you don’t have the blood you’ll be exposed to the destroying angel.’

Well, in the New Testament it says, ‘Christ, our Passover has been sacrificed for us.’ Christ has shed His blood as the Passover Lamb who takes away the sin of the world. But it’s as if the blood were in the basin. It’s available, but it doesn’t protect us until we sprinkle it on the place where we live. You understand? We have to transfer the blood from the basin to the place where we live. Now in the Old Testament they did it with hyssop. We don’t use hyssop. You know what we use? Our testimony. That’s the key - testifying personally to what the word says the blood does. You see? We overcome Satan when we testify personally to what the word of God says the blood of Jesus does for us. I’d like you to say that sentence after me. I’ll say it and you say it phrase by phrase, after me. We over come Satan when we testify personally to what the word of God says the blood of Jesus does for us. See that’s your personal testimony as the hyssop that transfers the blood from the basin to the place where you need. The blood is already shed. It’s protection is already available, but you have to avail yourself of it. Now I’m going to show you how to do that. I said that there were seven ways the blood of Jesus worked for us. I’m going to give you a testimony to say that makes each of those effective in your life. The first was we are redeemed by the blood. The Bible says in Psalm 107 verse 2,

“Let the redeemed of the Lord say so.”

Your redemption becomes effective when you say it. Just believing isn’t enough. It’s believing and saying. So what we’re going to say is this, I’ll do it first. Through the blood of Jesus I am redeemed from the hand of the devil. Okay. That’s my testimony that makes the redeeming power of the blood effective in my life. All right. Say it after me phrase by phrase. Through the blood of Jesus I am redeemed out of the hand of the devil. Now you have to say Praise the Lord, if you really believe it. [Applause and praising!!!]

The second effect of the blood is that we are justified and remember what I said justified means? Just as if I’d never sinned. So this is what we’ll say, and I’ll say it the first time. Through the blood of Jesus I am justified, made righteous, just as if I’d never sinned. Okay. Now say it phrase by phrase. Through the blood of Jesus I am justified, made righteous, just as if I’d never sinned. What do you say now? [Applause]

All right the next one is sanctified. You’ve got the idea now we can go more quickly. Through the blood of Jesus I am sanctified, made wholly, set apart to God out of Satan’s territory. Let’s add that. I don’t always do this the same. Are you ready? All right now are you ready. Through the blood of Jesus I am sanctified, made holy, set apart to God our of Satan’s territory. [Applause]

The next effect is continual cleansing and I think we’ll say it this way. While I walk in the light the blood of Jesus cleanses me now and continually from all sin. You understand why I put in now, because we’ve got to tie it down to this particular moment of time. It’s happening right now. Okay. While I walk in the light the blood of Jesus cleanses me now and continually from all sin. Amen [Applause]

The next one is access into the presence of God so we’ll say it this way. Through the blood of Jesus I have access with boldness into the immediate presence of God. Okay. Through the blood of Jesus I have access with boldness into the immediate presence of God Himself. Just meditate on that for a moment. Just think it over.

Then the next effect of the blood it speaks, it intercedes for us. So we’ll say it this way, The blood of Jesus sprinkled in heaven continually speaks for me in the presence of God. All right. The blood of Jesus sprinkled in heaven continually speaks for me in the presence of God and asks for mercy. Even when I may be straying, even when I’m growing a little cold or indifferent or I’m under temptation or pressure, the blood says have mercy, have mercy.

And finally God’s life. How are we going to say this. Because Jesus gave Himself for me on the cross and she His blood, the life of God is available to me. Okay. Now I’ll try to remember what I said. Because Jesus gave His life for me and shed His blood on the cross, the life of God is available to me, eternal life, divine life, undefeatable life, glorious life, it’s all mine through the blood of Jesus. Amen!!

Let’s stand to our feet.